Fraudsters hit Pubali Bank ATMs in Chattogram and Cumilla, steal Tk 0.9m

Fraudsters have stolen Tk 0.9 million (900,000) from three ATMs of Pubali Bank in Chattogram and Cumilla.

The stolen money was not slashed from any customer’s account as the fraudsters disconnected the machines from the main server first, according to officials.

The government bank filed general diaries (GDs) at the local police stations.

Police have published photos of two suspects from security cameras of the ATM booths and urged all to identify the duo.

The fraudsters stole Tk 650,000 from two ATMs in the port city’s Chawkbazar and Double Mooring and the rest from another in Cumilla, Pubali Bank Managing Director Abdul Halim Chowdhury said on Tuesday, reports bdnews24.

“We’ve given clear images of the thieves to the police,” he said and added the photos would be published in Wednesday’s newspapers.  

Halim also said he hoped the criminals would be caught and the money would be recovered soon.

Pubali Bank officials said the money was stolen from the ATM booths on Chattogram College Road and Agrabad Sheikh Mujib Road between 6:00pm and 9:30pm on Sunday.

Minhaz Uddin Sarwar, the manager of the bank’s College Road branch filed a GD at Chawkbazar Police Station on Tuesday, Inspector Reaz Uddin Chowdhury said. 

The fraudsters stole Tk 334,000 from the College Road booth of the bank between 6:00pm and 7:00pm on November 17, according to the GD.

Agrabad Sheikh Mujib Road branch manager Shahed Ali in another GD with Double Mooring Police Station on Monday said Tk 310,000 was stolen from the booth between 8:30pm and 9:30pm on November 17, Inspector Zahir Hossain said.

Dhaka Metropolitan Police’s news portal published a video obtained from the CCTV camera at the Pubali Bank ATM booth in Cumilla.

Two people are seen in the video drawing money from the ATM after opening a part of the machine and planting some device in it around 8:45pm.

The DMP asked anyone with information on the people in the video to call the assistant deputy commissioner of the Detective Branch at Khilgaon at 01713398596.

A similar fraud involving a private bank in Dhaka was unearthed in 2016. A foreign national was among those arrested in a case over the incident.