Bengaluru: 5 employees of cash management company arrested for 'exaggerating' amounts stolen from ATMs

Five employees of a cash management company have been arrested for allegedly inflating the amount stolen from ATMs in Bengaluru's Bellandur area.

Earlier this month, a man entered the Axis Bank ATM on Sarjapur Main Road. His face was covered by a scarf and within three minutes of entering, he used an air knife to open the ATM and quickly fled with an unknown amount of money.

According to media reports, the masked man was part of a gang that had previously targeted four other ATMs in Hassan, Bengaluru and Tamil Nadu.

Police started investigating the incident after an employee of cash transport company AGS Transact Technologies lodged a complaint that Rs 16 lakh was stolen from the ATM. Secure Value, a subsidiary of the company, deposits cash into Axis Bank ATMs in southeast Bengaluru and maintains self-service terminals.

Police reviewed CCTV footage from the ATM and found that the amount of money in the machine was not as much as stated in the complaint. a senior police officer told deccan herald The discrepancy suggested that not all of the Rs 1.6 million was deposited into the ATM, raising suspicions about Secure Value employees.

Police said that on July 1, the employee tried to deposit money into the ATM machine but was unable to do so due to a glitch, although a receipt was generated.

Thereafter, when the theft occurred on July 6, the gang falsely claimed that Rs 16 lakh was inside the ATM, but CCTV footage exposed their bluff, police told DH.

Later during investigation, Bellandur police recovered Rs 13.50 lakh and arrested five employees namely Pawan Kalyan, 28, Dharmendra, 52, Raghavendra, 36, Mahesh, 30 and Pratap, 30 .

Officials are currently working to determine how much money the masked man stole on July 6 and to track his whereabouts.