Bengaluru: Two foreign nationals, who were arrested by the Tilak Nagar police station in early July, have been handed over to Cubbon Park police on Wednesday for further investigation into the charges of fixing skimming devices in ATM kiosks across the city and duping people of lakhs of rupees.
The accused, identified as Gonzalo Rafael Monje Valenzuela (30) and Angelo Manvel Venegaz Brione (26), both from Chile, were arrested on July 6 following a complaint from a cash refilling company after their alert executive spotted the skimming device fixed on a Canara Bank ATM.
The police are searching for the other two accused Miguel Angel Gimenez Poblete and Angelo Rodrigo Diaz Munoz who are absconding. The accused were operating from a service apartment in Sahyadri Layout.
Gonzalo and Angelo are part of a four-member gang who were involved in fixing skimming devices in the ATMs in Jayanagar, Ashok Nagar, Wilson Garden and Cubbon Park to steal debit and credit card data and then dupe people of their money.
On July 2 at around 4:30pm, Hussain, an executive and in-charge of ATM refilling at APS Pvt. Ltd, A cash refilling company, refilled the Canara Bank ATM on 28th main road in Jayanagar 9th block.
After that Hussain inserted his debit card into card reader to check if the machine was churning out the cash, but he found a skimmer fixed into the reader. He immediately informed his immediate boss, who filed a complaint at the Tilak Nagar police station.
The police said the gang travelled across Europe and Singapore before arriving in Bengaluru in June. For a month they were involved in skimming and had collected a huge amount of data which is yet to be recovered.
The accused were handed over to Cubbon Park police as several cases of fraudulent transactions were reported. Four police constables attached with the Cubbon Park Police Station were duped of their money
following which they had filed a complaint.
Money was fraudulently withdrawn from their account after their debit was cloned. The money was withdrawn from a Canara bank ATM located near the Cubbon Park Police Station.
Later, a skimming device and a small camera attached above the keypad was recovered from the ATM. The
police are questioning the accused to learn about their activities and other areas they targeted.
