One arrested for ‘trapping’ ATM cards for fraud, using machine to prompt 'helpline' calls
Telegraph | 17 March 2025
A 36-year-old man has been arrested in Anandapur, in the southeast of the city, for allegedly sticking a machine to ATMs in unguarded kiosks to trap users’ cards to trick them into dialling a “helpline” number. Once the users called the number, he would collect their bank details and defraud them, police said.
Mohammad Sahil was arrested in Anandapur’s Gulshan Colony on Saturday.
“It is still too early, but our preliminary investigation has revealed that Sahil was involved in multiple ATM fraud cases in different parts of the city in the past month,” a senior Kolkata Police officer said on Saturday.
Officers said Sahil would use a “machine” that he would stick to the ATMs.
The machine ensured the user’s ATM card got stuck.
Usually, the victim would try to retrieve his or her card for some time and then look around and spot a helpline number pasted on the kiosk’s wall.
Once the user dialled that number, he or she would be asked to type the card’s PIN to unlock it, the officer said.
The victim would then be asked for other inconsequential details and instructed to turn up at the nearest branch of the bank that issued the ATM card to register a complaint and collect a duplicate copy of the card.
“Several printed helpline numbers on paper strips were recovered from Sahil along with plastic rolls bearing the name of a nationalised bank. Some machines that he had allegedly used were seized, too,” the officer said.
The Telegraph reported in February how at least three people lost money in an alleged fraud while trying to withdraw money from an ATM of a nationalised bank near Kishore Bharati stadium in Jadavpur.
The victims had told the police their cards got locked in the ATM slot and did not come out.
When they called a helpline number stuck inside the kiosk, they were told to provide their PINs to unlock their cards, they had told the cops.
Within minutes of sharing the PINs, their money was gone.
One of the victims, Balai Sardar of Singhabari in Kalikapur off EM Bypass, said he lost around ₹25,000 after his card got stuck in an SBI ATM near Kishore Bharati stadium.
The ATM kiosk, adjoining a bank branch, did not have a guard.
Another victim, Arup Jyoti Pradhan, said he was instructed to use a code to cancel the last transaction using the card stuck in the ATM slot. Then he was told to use his PIN to block the card and meet bank officials the next day to apply for a new card.
“After I returned home, a series of transactions worth ₹10,000 each were carried out in a flash. The messages just kept coming one after another. I lost around ₹1.3 lakh,” Pradhan had said.