Agartala: Feb 27: A shocking case of fraud involving ATM cards has been uncovered in the heart of Agartala city. On Wednesday, a gang’s elaborate plan to defraud a travel agency was exposed, leading to the arrest of five individuals by the East Agartala police. The incident took place in the Math Chaumuhani area, where a fraudster initially visited the travel agency of Soumitra Kumar Banik to buy a ticket to Jammu and Kashmir. He paid Rs 10,000 online for the ticket.
After a short time, the fraudster returned to the agency, pretending to be the same customer, and requested that his ticket be canceled and the Rs 10,000 refunded to his account. Soumitra Banik complied with the request, returning the money. However, shortly afterward, Banik received a call from Tamil Nadu police informing him that illegal transactions had occurred from his bank account, which had been closed. Realizing he had been deceived, Banik rushed to East Agartala police station to report the incident.
The police began their investigation immediately and apprehended the fraudster, who had posed as a customer. During questioning, it was revealed that this individual was part of a larger network operating a sophisticated scam to launder black money. The gang encouraged people to open ATM cards and rent them out for a monthly fee of Rs 2,000-3,000. They would then use these cards to carry out fraudulent digital transactions. Police recovered a large number of ATM cards, bank passbooks, and cash from the suspects.
Further investigation revealed that Rs 25-30 lakh had been deposited into each of the seized ATM cards over the past six months. The arrested individuals—Piyush Debnath, Narayan Debnath, Sagar Das, Riptadeep Biswas, and Rohan Rudra Pal—are part of a larger network, not only operating within the state but also extending outside. The police plan to place them in remand for further investigation.
