Visakhapatnam:
A 21-year-old youth was arrested for allegedly siphoning off over Rs one lakh from ATM centres in the city by stealing debit cards of five persons, police said yesterday.
"The accused, identified as M Arjun Rao, native of K Kotapadu area in the district, used to wait at the ATM centres in the city and target people, who did not have much knowledge about the ATMs to withdraw money," Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crimes) S Varada Raju said.
He would pretend to help them and in the process note down the PIN number of the ATM card. He would then wait for the statement slip. If the balance is low, he would return the card and the statement slip. However, if the balance is sizeable, he would swap the card with another one that he used to conceal under his palm, police said.
"Once the customer left the ATM centre, the accused would withdraw money from the ATM by using the stolen ATM card. He has withdrawn Rs 1.06 lakh by using ATM cards of five customers," Raju added.
Based on the complaint from one of the victims, Pendurthi police investigated the case and arrested Arjuna Rao based on the CCTV footage at the ATM and also recovered Rs 90,000 cash from him.