ATM Fraud: City sees 5x increase in ATM and card frauds

ATM and card thieves are becoming increasingly bold, with the city recording a five-fold increase in cases in a year

Chandigarh: In the last one year, there has been a nearly five-fold increase in the number of frauds and embezzlements related to credit/debit cards, ATMs and net banking. The increase is even more alarming since 2019-20.
The UT cyber police has registered 100 fraud cases related to card fraud, ATM fraud and internet banking during 2023-24, leading to a loss of Rs 2.67 crore by account holders. The data provided by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) was tabled in the Parliament session this week. The report covered fraud cases involving amounts exceeding Rs 1 lakh.

According to a report, Chandigarh has come second among UTs in terms of online frauds related to credit cards, debit cards and net banking after Delhi. According to a report submitted by RBI in the Lok Sabha, cyber police There were 13 cases of fraud registered in 2019-20 and the fraud amount was just Rs 24 lakh. In 2020-21, the police registered only seven cases of fraud through cards and net banking amounting to Rs 42 lakh. The police registered 26 cases of fraud in 2021-22 and the fraud amount was Rs 81 lakh.
Data shows that the Chandigarh Cyber Police registered 21 cases of frauds committed through debit/credit cards and net banking alone, with the fraud amounting to Rs 54 lakh during 2022-23.
On the other hand, Delhi registered a total of 4,245 cases under this category with a fraud amount of Rs 113 crore from 2019-20 to 2023-2024. The Andaman and Nicobar Police registered only eight FIRs amounting to just Rs 16 lakh. Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Daman Diu reported only 27 cases amounting to Rs 60 lakh in five years. The data shows that Jammu and Kashmir registered 110 cases of fraud with a loss of Rs 3 crore related to debit/credit cards and net banking during this period. Puducherry registered fraud amounting to Rs 46 lakh and registered 15 FIRs in five years.
To combat online fraud, the Tennessee State Police Department recently hired 144 IT officers with a bachelor’s degree (minimum 3 years) or master’s degree (minimum 2 years) in computer science, electronics, instrumentation, communications, information technology, mechatronics, computer applications, data science, or a related field from a recognized board or university.
Man uses duplicate keys to open ATM and steal money
The UT police have arrested a man on the charge of stealing cash from a PNB ATM. The accused used duplicate keys to steal the money from the ATM in Sector 33. The police produced the accused before a local court and obtained his remand for further questioning. The Sector 34 police said the accused has been identified as Abhay Kumar Jha, 35, a resident of New Delhi.
In her statement, Sunita Kaushik, branch manager of Punjab National Bank in Sector 33, Chandigarh, said the central monitoring team detected suspicious activities at the ATM belonging to PNB in Sector 33 and informed the bank officials about it on July 26.
After reviewing the ATM kiosk surveillance footage, it was found that an unknown person had entered the ATM lobby and tampered with the ATM. The person had used a duplicate key to open the lower door of the ATM and had placed adhesive tape inside the ATM cabinet door, making it difficult to dispense cash. As a result, when customers tried to withdraw money from the ATM, the cash remained invisible due to the object mounted in front of the ATM. However, customers still received messages confirming that the requested amount had been successfully debited from their accounts.
The fraudster then returned to the ATM, opened the lower door and removed the cash that had accumulated in the machine.