Pune: Officials of the Pune rural police local crime branch (LCB) have busted a gang of thieves involved in breaking into different ATM machines to steal cash. The gang was involved in seven successful ATM machine thefts and several attempts to break into ATM machines.
A team, led by senior Police Inspector Dayanand Gavde of LCB, busted the gang and arrested six of the nine gang members from Dhayri and Jamkhed. "All nine accused are friends and hail from Ahmednagar. They were running tyre puncture repair shops in Dhayri and at night, they would try their luck at breaking into ATMs," added Gavde. Police officials said that the seven successful ATM thefts took place at Shikrapur, Loni Kalbhor, Bhigwan, Ahmednagar, and Satara district.
The police were successful in recovering Rs 3.93 lakh cash from the arrested accused. After multiple incidents of break-ins at ATM kiosks, Superintendent of Rural police Suvez Haque had asked LCB officials to work on the case. "We recovered an empty ATM machine which was abandoned in Rashin area of Karjat, Ahmednagar. We further came to know that the ATM was stolen from Nagpur MIDC, based on which, we suspected that the accused are from Karjat," added Gavde. Based on CCTV footage at various locations, the police started investigation near various local areas in Ahmednagar.
The police further learnt that some of the accused were in Dhayri area of Pune. Accordingly, multiple traps were laid to nab the accused. During the interrogation of the six arrested accused, the police found that the gang members are from Uttar Pradesh and Ahmednagar. The police have also recovered two SUVs from the accused. Gavde said that the ATM machines are of different banks and the accused would do a complete recce before targeting the ATM machines." At one ATM kiosk in Koregaon Bhima, they even attacked the watchman but failed to steal the ATM machine. On August 23, they stole an ATM machine with cash worth Rs 15 lakh in Shikrapur," added Gavde.
The police investigation team included Assistant Police Inspector Ganesh Kshirsagar, Neelkanth Jagtap and policemen Dattatreya Girmikar, Mahesh Gaikwad, Nilesh Kadam, Popat Gaikwad, Sachin Gaikwad, Raju Momin, Sunil Bandal, Dayanand Liman, Moreshwar Inamdar, Ravin Shingare and Ajay Kokani.
