Thaindian News

Ghaziabad, Dec 5 (IANS) In a suspected insider job, an ATM of the Punjab National Bank branch in Modi Nagar area of Ghaziabad was tampered with and Rs.64.50 lakh withdrawn late Saturday, police said.

According to circle officer Praveen Ranjan Singh, four employees of Writer Safeguards, the firm which deposits cash in PNB ATMs, are the prime suspects.

“The four employees, identified as Shashi Shekhar, Ravi Ranjan, Deepak Tomar and Madan Pal, had deposited Rs.76 lakh at around 7.45 pm on Saturday. By 9.15 pm, about Rs.64.50 lakh was withdrawn from the machine and there was just Rs. 11.50 lakh left,” he said.

The ATM cabin had two CCTV cameras, of which one was defunct. The footage showed a man entering the cabin wrapped in a blanket. However, the face is not visible, Singh said.

The blanket was recovered inside the ATM cabin Sunday.

“The cash depositing security agency staff usually have a twelve-digit password with which they open the ATM cabinet to deposit cash. In this case, the money was not siphoned off by any card but taken out by opening the machine box. No tampering marks were found anywhere else on the machine,” he said.

“Apart from these persons, no one else knew the password. We suspect that either these men have opened the machine themselves or might have given the password to anyone else,” he said.

The four employees have been detained and investigations are on, he added.