Cops probing the fraudulently withdrawn cash worth Rs 40 lakh from three ATM counters in the city between 14 to 22 May are zeroing in on two persons allegedly seen in cc tv footages retrieved from the three ATM counters on working on the hoods of the ATM machines, led the cops to belive that they might be involved in defrauding racket meticulously done by orchestrating what the police claimed the alleged “man in the middle”(MITM) device.
This phenomenon in swindling money is being seen as the maiden such ploy by the fraudsters in the city so far which not only outsmarted the bank authorities but also raised the question on unmanned state of affairs in most of the ATM counters in and around the city.

” This kind of operation is only possible by the deft actors, who have sound skills and in depth knowledge of ATM operation mechanism by inserting proxy server to collect data and prompt bank server into sharing cash asked for by the fraudsters”, said an officer of anti- bank fraud section of Kolkata Police.

The incident likely to have happened with 30- 45 minutes with the cable at the back of the ATM machines that linked with Bank’ s server had been “detached” to insert the “MITM” device, which had created a proxy server to share the encrypted messages that would have been communicated through the cable detached linked with the ATM and the bank server.

The officers are also trying to unveil whether any “cloned ” cards had been used to spew the cash.

As much as cash worth Rs 39.60 lakh had been fraudulently withdrawn by fraudsters from three ATM counters located at New Market, Jadavpur and Kashipore branch of a private bank.

This is an apparent departure from the technique earlier adopted by the Goa gang or the Romanian gang by inserting skimmer in the machine to clone customers’ cards to withdraw cash fraudulently.

The police are also on the move to quiz the members of a hired private company reportedly engaged by the private bank entrusted with job to upgrade ATM encrypted security to untangle the fraud jigsaw.

Cops are worry about the number of ATM counters being defrauded by what the sleuths of the anti-fraud section of the detective department(DD) of Kolkata Police accounts that the number may increase as another case of ATM being defrauded came to notice today after an FIR had been lodged at t he Bow bazaar Police station of an ATM had been conned as over Rs 25 lakh had allegedly been siphoned off.

Meanwhile, Preliminary investigation revealed at this stage that a gang based in Faridpur, , UP its suspected to be behind the racket but investigation on this still on as suspects seen in the cc tv footages retrieved so far had the footage similar to an accused identified by the UP Police in connection with such bank fraud case using MITM device in UP recently , claimed an officer.