UP man jams ATM server with simple technique to cheat banks in Bengaluru

Rajajinagar police have arrested a 20-year-old Uttar Pradesh native who used a fraudulent technique to hang the bank server and cheated the banks several times.

Deepak, 20, hailing from Hamirpur district, employed a technique to freeze the bank’s server to ensure the sensor message on the amount withdrawn had not been sent to the bank’s server. Police seized around 48 debit cards and Rs 52,000 in cash from him.

Based on a complaint filed by Uma Mahesh, an employee of a private firm that maintains the software, a team headed by police inspector Venkatesh N R and sub-inspector M Subramani nabbed Deepak. Mahesh told the police that someone had withdrawn money from an ATM of Central Bank of India in Dr Rajkumar Road on February 23. The incident came to light on February 24.

Police caught Deepak based on the image captured by the CCTV camera at the kiosk. Deepak has been defrauding the bank with the help of two of his associates. He rented a room in Doddakallasandra on Monday night, two days before his arrest. He arrived in Bengaluru on February 15 and stayed in different lodges.

While one of Deepak’s associates went to Delhi to commit a similar fraud, another has gone to Andhra Pradesh for the same purpose. Deepak, who studied up to class 12, learnt the technique to freeze the server on his own.

Deepak would use original debit card and PIN to withdraw an amount between Rs 5,000 and Rs 10,000. Seconds before the amount comes out of the cash dispenser, he would insert his hand to block the sensor from capturing the amount withdrawn and transferring it to the server, thereby hanging the software.

Despite getting the money from the cash dispenser, he would lodge a complaint with the bank’s customer care saying he did not get the money, following which the bank would deposit the amount to his account within 48 hours as per the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) guidelines.

Deepak had borrowed debit cards from his villagers by offering commission for using their cards. Laden with the cards, he would come to Bengaluru, change the PIN and use a single number for all the cards for easy remembrance. Although three of his earlier trips to the city had been successful, Deepak’s luck ran out this time.