Police from the Central Crime Station on Thursday arrested eight people for misappropriating Rs 2.65 crore meant for deposits in ATMs. Five others, said to be the kingpins, are still at large. The CCS police swung into action after CMS Securities Limited, a company which maintains cash in ATMs for various banks, lodged a complaint that its employees had misappropriated Rs 2.65 crore.
While the arrested have been identified as Shiva Kumar, Sridhar Goud, Srinivasulu, Sai Kumar, Srikanth, Vara Prasad, Srinu and Murali Mohan, those still at large are Lalit Kumar, Mohan Babu, Suresh Kumar, Navin Chari and Srinu. Assistant commissioner of police, CCS, Mr P. Rama Krishna said Raghavendra, regional manager of CMS Securities Limited lodged a complaint on April 30 stating that the employees of the company had misappropriated Rs 2.65 crore over a period of one-and-a-half years.
Though no money has been recovered from those arrested, who claim to have spent their share, the police hope to recover some of the money from the masterminds. Investigating officers say the company lost the money because of its poor auditing system. The cash loaders i.e. the accused persons, used to load the amount in the ATMs and feed an amount higher than what they had loaded into the digital system. As the audit happens to be a very casual affair, the loaders could predict when it would take place and manage to get cash from other ATMs on which audit was not being conducted at the same time. CMS Securities maintains ATMs of banks like Ax-is, SBI and ING Vysya.