The Commissionerate police on Friday arrested a history-sheeter allegedly involved in a series of bank ATM loots in at least six districts in the State, including in the State capital.
Interestingly, the looter Madhab Chandra Acharya, who now resides at Mahavir Nagar in Salia Sahi under the Nayapalli police limits and a native of Tarando in Kendrapada district, bought two buses and a car with the stolen money.
The police acted on a complaint lodged by one Ullash Chandra Mohanty of Baramunda at the Khandagiri police station that Rs20,000 was withdrawn from his account by an unknown person from the Ramamani Petrol Pump SBI ATM counter.
“Madhab Acharya and his associates usually target old men and women at the time of withdrawal of cash from SBI ATMs. They remain present inside the ATM counters and take position behind the customer and observe his/her finger movement and remember the password. After the customer has inserted the ATM card and entered his password, they cunningly press the cancel button. later, they persuade the customer to leave the ATM on the plea that ATM is not functional. Soon after the customer’s departure, they enter the password and withdraw monry,” Commissioner of Police Yogesh Bahadur Khurania said.
Khurania said Acharya learnt the loot technique by observing ATM theft movies on video sharing website YouTube, adding that he was active in the districts of Khordha, including Bhubaneswar, Kendrapada, Baleswar, Bhadrak, Dhenkanal and Puri.
Meanwhile, police seized from Acharya his two buses bearing registration number OR-02-AQ-0877 and OR-05-D-1747, a Hyundai i10 car bearing number OD-02-AC-1936, Rs60,000 in cash and a tin plate of the size of an ATM card.
Many cases have been pending against him, and he was also earlier sent to jail. Police have now launched a manhunt to nab the associates of Acharya.