Journalist among three arrested for Allahabad ATM heist

Police also recovered Rs 24 lakh from the accused — Rs 11.5 lakh from Anoop,Rs 4 lakh from Awadhesh Pal and Rs 8.5 lakh from Naresh. The main accused,Bhupesh Kumar,who was one of the staff of the cash loading agency,is,however,absconding.

According to the police,the accused had been taking out money from the ATMs for the past four years. Earlier,the amount taken out used to be small and they would also “return” it to the ATMs. In the last 18 months,they had started taking out bigger sums and were failing to refill the same,leading to a shortfall of around Rs 1.67 crore. The money used to be spent on gambling,wine,women and even taking up a petty contract.

The incident came to light on July 11,when an ATM of the Axis Bank at Civil Lines ran out of money and the cash custodian,Bhupesh,went missing. On that day,Bhupesh had withdrawn Rs 30 lakh from eight ATMs of the bank,police said.

“Anoop was the mastermind. Naresh was friends with Anoop and was actively involved in the entire racket. He thought that he would not get caught because he was a journalist,” said Superintendent of Police (City) Shailesh Kumar Yadav. Anoop had roped in Awadhesh and Bhupesh in the racket.