Ker ATM robbery: Foreigners may be involved; police to seek

Kerala Police today zeroed in on three foreign nationals, who are suspected to be the key players behind the hi-tech ATM robbery which has shocked the state capital, and decided to seek Interpol's help.
A team of top police officers, including ADGP B Sandhya, Range IG Manoj Abraham and cyber and technical experts visited the ATM of a public sector bank at Althara junction at Vellayambalam here, where a suspected electronic device was found to have been installed.
They also collected evidence from the ATM counter.
Sandhya later told reporters that as foreigners were suspected to be involved in the fraud, Kerala Police would seek the help of Interpol to nab the culprits.

"We will seek the help of Interpol. We are collecting evidence now," she said.
City Police Commissioner G Sparjan Kumar told PTI that police are trying to ascertain the whereabouts of the three persons, whose pictures had been retrieved from the CCTV, installed inside the ATM kiosk at Vellayambalam.

"We examined the visuals of the CCTV and got the pictures of three foreigners. We suspect that they had a hand in the ATM robbery," he said.
"We have already intensified our investigation to trace their whereabouts and establish their identity. We are also probing whether more persons were involved in the crime," he said.

The officer said the support of cyber and technical experts was sought to understand the technical method used by the fraudsters to withdraw the money.
"As many as 22 people have so far lodged complaints saying money was withdrawn from their account. As per the preliminary assessment, about Rs 2.5 lakh had been lost," he said.
It is suspected that the electronic device at the ATM counter enabled the fraudsters to collect the secret pin code and card details.
(REOPENS DEL42)
According to police, the three foreign nationals were from Romania and had come to India on June 25. They reached Kerala on July 8.

They had come on tourist visa and taken rooms in a hotel here for two days, hotel sources said.
The hotel has released their names as--Ilie, Florecy and Christian Victor.
Police said they have seized from the hotel two scooters and three helmets, suspected to have been used by the trio.