The Tamil Nadu police on Saturday cut short the ambitions of an inter-state gang that targeted and robbed vulnerable ATM kiosks across the country. Two of the gang's members were arrested at gunpoint at Tiruvallur district based on a tip-off from the Telangana police. The gang operated from a container truck that they drove around and were reportedly planning to target kiosks in Chennai and its suburbs.
A joint police team from Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur districts arrested two men, later identified as Vasim and Hassan. They both originally hailed from Rajasthan. These accused were tailed by the police and nabbed at a petrol bunk in Tiruvallur after the gang conducted heists in Andhra Pradesh's Chittoor district. The Telangana police, according to reports, had followed the trail of the robbers and arrested two members of the gang in Nagpur. From there, cell phone tower signals were tracked to identify other members in Tiruvallur district. Special teams were then reportedly formed under Tiruvallur Superintendent of Police P Aravindhan and Kancheepuram Superintendent of Police D Shanmugapriya.
Kancheepuram SP Shanmugapriya told The Times of India that the gang had earlier stolen a police vehicle while escaping with stolen cash and abandoned the car later. They then used a truck to enter Tamil Nadu. According to the police, the arrested men would drive around in their container truck on the lookout for ATM kiosks without a watchman or CCTV cameras.
While they used tools to open the ATMs and steal the cash, in some cases, they reportedly just lifted the entire machine and brought it back to the truck. Following this, they would prise the machine open to remove cash.
Close to 50 police officers reportedly formed a special team to nab the two accused.