Romanian national Gabriel Marian, arrested in connection with the sensational hi-tech ATM fraud case in Thiruvananthapuram, was on Sunday taken to various five star hotels, where he had stayed along with his accomplices, for evidence taking, police said.
On Saturday, the accused was taken to the ATM kiosk near Thiruvananthapuram from where he had tampered with the ATM to swindle money. Police on Sunday confirmed that five Romanians were involved in the case and four of them had fled the country, while one had been arrested.
Police also released a CCTV footage of an Indian accomplice of the accused, who is seen withdrawing money from an ATM at Navi Mumbai. They are also planning to seek Interpol’s help to collect details of similar kind of frauds elsewhere. A court has remanded the 35-year-old Marian to police custody till August 22.
According to the FIR filed by police in court, the accused had illegally managed to “secure” bank data for swindling money from the customers who came to the SBI ATM counter at Althara in the city and then conspired and manufactured fake ATM cards with the data obtained and withdrew money from ATMs in Mumbai.
At least 22 persons have filed complaints before police and bank officials regarding withdrawal of their money from the ATM counter. As per a preliminary assessment, customers have lost about Rs 2.5 lakh from their accounts.