Romanian arrested from Delhi for ATM card fraud in Kolkata

A Romanian was arrested on Monday by a Kolkata Police team from New Delhi's Greater Kailash I area for his alleged involvement in recent cases of ATM/Debit card fraud in the eastern metropolis, a senior officer said. Siliviu Florin Spiridon (28), a resident of Constanta in Romania, was arrested by a team of the detective department of Kolkata Police, he said.

A number of accessories like pinhole camera chips which are kept inside ATMs, skimming devices, magnetic chips, batteries, and several documents were seized from him, Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) of Kolkata Police Murlidhar Sharma told PTI. "We are grilling him to find out about his accomplices. He has confessed to his crime," Sharma said.

He said the Kolkata Police Detective Department sleuths had got information about the Romanian staying at a flat in Greater Kailash 1 with two of his accomplices and that they were planning to withdraw money from an ATM in the locality. "Our officers from the Anti-bank Fraud Unit of the department waited at the ATM in plainclothes but the trio guessed the presence of policemen and tried to flee in the autorickshaw in which they had traveled," he said.

They chased the autorickshaw and nabbed the Romanian. His accomplices, however, managed to escape, Sharma said.

Over 70 people from different parts of Kolkata had lodged complaints that large sums of money were withdrawn from their accounts by fraudsters since early this month. Majority of the complaints were made by people who had used ATMs of private and nationalized banks around Sukanta Setu at Jadavpur in the southern part of Kolkata.