BCA, MBA degree holders held for ATM frauds; say joblessness pushed them to crime

A BCA graduate and an MBA degree holder have been arrested in Greater Noida for allegedly duping people of cash inside ATM vestibules, police said on Wednesday.

The two men, held on Tuesday night from an ATM vestibule in Alpha 2, said they were pushed into duping people due to "unemployment", according to the police.

Accused Prashant Chaudhary and Manish Kumar targeted ATM users in Noida, Greater Noida and Ghaziabad. They were doing this for around a year and had duped people of cash amounting to Rs 7 to 8 lakh, a police official said.

They would find out the vestibules that had two ATMs and that too, which processed transactions at a slow speed. Once inside, they would wait for a gullible target. One of them would stand inside the room and count his money while the user would initiate his transaction, Station House Officer (SHO), Beta 2, Sujeet Kumar Upadhyay said.

"Midway, due to the slow-processing ATM, the accused would tell the person that the machine was not working and he should try the other one. The user would be unaware that the accused had taken note of their secret PIN," he told PTI.

"When the user would switch to the other machine, the other accused would keep the target's transaction continued with the help of the PIN and then, withdraw money," Upadhyay said.

Ten ATM cards, Rs 10,700 in cash, two PAN cards and one Aadhaar card were seized from the duo, the police said.

Kumar (31) is a Bachelor in Computer Applications (BCA) graduate, while Chaudhary (34) is a BSc graduate and also holds an MBA degree, according to the police.

"They told the investigators that unemployment had pushed them to duping people. They had told their families that they were working in the real estate sector and hence, justified the huge amounts of money," a police officer said.

An FIR was already registered against the duo at the Site 5 police station in Greater Noida, while a fresh case of fraud was lodged at the Beta 2 police station.

The accused have been sent to jail by a local court, the officials said.