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PNB ATM Fraud: Lacs of rupees withdrawn from 8 PNB ATMs in Rajasthan by ATM Employees


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Lakhs of rupees went missing from Punjab National Bank (PNB) ATMs in Rajasthan. The surprising incident is that the bank officials got this information for the first time after about six months.

When the investigation was done, it was found that this money was not withdrawn by anyone else but by the employees of the company which maintains the ATM machine. This has happened not in just one, but in eight branches of Rajasthan.

Recently, after the case was registered in Jodhpur, when the investigation was done, it was found that the embezzlement was first done in the Sirohi branch and from there the matter came to the notice of the bank officials. By then the company’s employees had withdrawn lakhs of rupees.

The first case in Jodhpur has been registered at Bhagat Ki Kothi police station. PNB Madhuban branch manager Ghevarram said that M/s Diebold Nixdorf India Private Limited company works as a vendor to maintain the ATM machines.

While registering a case against the vendor and the employees, the manager told the police that the care and servicing of the ATM machines is done by the company’s employees only. The company’s employees have committed fraud by tampering with the branch’s ATM.

Similarly, on January 11, 2024, in Pratap Nagar Police Station, Chaupasni Housing Board Branch Manager Vijaypal Singh has registered a case against the vendors and employees of the company for machine tampering and money fraud. Five more complaints have been received from different branches in the same police station, in which this fraud is mentioned.

Police officials said that a similar embezzlement had taken place in Sirohi in the year 2023. The first case was registered here on 9 January 2023. The work of ATM maintenance and servicing of PNB Bank here was also given to M/s Diebold Nixdorf India Private Limited Company.

Suresh Kumar Meena, manager of PNB Bank in Sirohi, had registered a case against the company’s vendor Kailashchandra Regar. According to the report, from July 23, 2021 to June 5, 2022, the vendor used to come to service the ATM without informing any official. He used to open the machine there and take out money.

In the first case registered in Sirohi, the manager told the police that on December 1, 2022, the bank employees had gone to put money in the machine. According to the calculations, the bank was short by Rs 46 thousand. The bank started investigation and searched the transaction history, but could not find the account.

Meanwhile, when the bank scrutinized the ATM related transactions, it found a gap of Rs 46 thousand, but there was no withdrawal history. On this, the bank examined the CCTV footage of November 30, 2022.

When the CCTV was seen, it was revealed that the company’s employee Kailashchandra had serviced the ATM without informing any bank official and during this time he had withdrawn Rs 46 thousand from this ATM. After this, a case was registered by the bank in January 2023 and the accused was also arrested on the same day.

After this case came to light from Sirohi branch in December 2023, the bank officials of Sirohi branch came into action. The bank scrutinized all the transaction history from July 23, 2021 to June 5, 2022.

The bank got all the transactions done in ATMs audited and their CCTV footage was scrutinized. It came to light that the accused used to go to the ATM anytime in the name of ATM service. Here first he withdrew Rs 500-1000. In such a situation he could not be caught.

When the bank calculated these fraudulently withdrawn rupees, it was found that from July 2021 to June 2022, the accused Kailash Chandra had withdrawn Rs 6 lakh 92 thousand 900 from the ATM machine.

Bank officials are not saying anything officially in this regard, but on the condition of anonymity they said that PNB has given contract to three companies for the maintenance of ATMs of the bank in the state. After the fraud in Sirohi came to light, when the ATM related transactions of all the branches were investigated, it was revealed that in the branch which had given the contract to Diebold Company, there was fraud in most of the places. This entire investigation took about 1 year.

When the bank investigated till December 2023, it was found that not only in Sirohi, the employees and vendors of this company had also rigged the ATMs of 8 PNB bank branches in Jodhpur city. However, bank officials refused to reveal how much money had been embezzled from Jodhpur city.

According to bank officials, ATM has two parts. One part is cash and the other is technical. Diebold Company looked after the technical part. There is an agreement between the bank and the company regarding the service and maintenance of the ATM.

Under this agreement, the company had to perform service once a month. For this, the rule was that the bank shares all the information related to ATM with the company, such as ATM code, lock-unlock details and password information.

The rule is also that whenever the company comes for service, an employee or officer of the bank will be present there. Both the bank and the vendor had to write its details in their records along with date and time.

But, the employees of this company kept this also on hold. The employee of the company used to go without any information whenever he wanted under the pretext of service and embezzle the money.

3 Comments

  1. No bank and private company will have a rule for sharing password and lock keys in their agreement. The ATM technician can’t access the cash box without having the key and password of cash safe.

    Hence if the technician was able to open the safe, password might have been shared by the ATM custodian. The custodian can be from the Bank or from a 3rd party agency engaged by the Bank for loading cash in ATM.

  2. There is system in all banks as regards daily ATM reconciliation or when money is put into the ATM. WAS it done by officials of the bank.daily EOD has to be done as per guidelines.There is clear laxity on the part of bank officials

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