'Lucky Baskhar'-inspired theft: Six held for stealing cash from ATMs in Bengaluru

Bengaluru: The Mahalakshmi Layout police in north Bengaluru arrested six people, of which five were working with a cash management agency, for siphoning off cash from ATMs, officials said on Friday.

The arrested are Sameer S, 26; Manohar K, 29; Girish S, 26; Jaggesh, 28; Shivu K, 27 and Jaswant V, 27. Except for Jaswanth, who was from Laggere, the others were from Nandini Layout in Bengaluru, the police said.

Officials said that Sameer worked as a cash officer with Secure Value Private Ltd, and Manohar, Girish, Jaggesh, and Jaswant worked as cash loaders with the company. Shivu was the driver of the vehicle that carried that cash to be deposited in ATMs. None of the suspects had any prior cases, the police said.

According to the police, on January 25, based on credible inputs the six were arrested from a tea shop in Kempegowda Layout.

“There were inputs from the informers that some people were arguing about large sums of money,” a police investigator said. “Hence, a team of officials were immediately dispatched and the suspects were secured and brought to the station.”

From the suspects, the police recovered a car and Rs 43.76 lakh in cash. During interrogation, the six admitted that they were siphoning off cash from ATMs and at the time of their arrest, they were arguing about the splitting of the money.

“We came to learn that they were inspired by the Telugu movie Lucky Baskhar,” a senior officer said. “They were planning to invest the money they had siphoned off over two years.”

Bengaluru police commissioner B Dayananda said that the suspects also had access to ATM passwords.

“They used to siphon off a little bit of money at a time when it was being loaded, which was not caught in the systems,” he said. “Since they had access to passwords, in the guise of repair, they stole money from ATMs.”

As a further part of the investigation, the police recovered Rs 8 lakh and three cars. The total value of the recovery was pegged at Rs 90 lakh. A further investigation has been launched to ascertain how many ATMs were targeted in the city.