Nine members of a gang including five of a family and a lady constable involved in ATM theft were arrested in Odisha's Malkangiri district, police said today.
Two laptops, 3 Data cards, 4 mobile phones, 50 sim cards, many ATM cards (fake and original of various banks), 16 cheque books of various banks, pass books and land documents were seized from the gang members arrested yesterday.
There are around 50 members of the gang and two of them had been arrested in May this year from the district, Malkangiri Superintendent of Police Akhileswar Singh told reporters today.
The arrest was made after the police raided some places in MV 16 village on the basis of CCTV camera footage provided by the Delhi and Baroda police, he said.
The arrested persons included the alleged leader of the gang, Haridas Biswas of MV 16 under Malkangiri police station who was working in a private company at Delhi. He had come in contact with many bank employees and gathered all software knowledge about functioning of ATMs, he said.
In 2006 he started the gang and appointed agents in every district of Odisha. The gang members were withdrawing money from ATMs with the help of fake cards, police said.
Biswas himself had drawn Rs 1,25,72,000 and invested in purchase of land and other things during 2011-13.
In all 50 cases were registered against the gang in Malkangiri, Gajapati, Nabarangapur, Koraput, Kendrapara, Cuttack, Balasore, Raygada, Delhi, the SP said adding the gang members had siphoned about Rs 50 crore from different places so far.
Apart from Haridas, his father Harabila Biswas, Subhadra Biswas (Mother), Basanti Biswas (sister and constable), Jayanti Biswas (sister) and gang members Tapas Poddar, Brahmahananda Talukdar, Satyajit Sarkar, Rajesh Patnaik (Advocate and brother-in-law), he said.
Investigation is in progress and the accused would be forwarded to court soon.
