Ranchi police on Thursday arrested two aides of ATM custodians, who had fled with Rs 4.07 crore cash in December 2019 from the State capital and recovered cash worth Rs 98 lakh from their possession.
The cash recovered on Thursday is a portion of the money stolen by the two ATM custodians in 2019, police said. The two arrested on Thursday, Rajkumar Srivastava and Prabhash Kumar, were not directly involved in the crime, but they had kept a portion of the cash in their possession after the theft, police said.
“We had arrested the two prime accused in January 2020 itself and recovered more than Rs 2 crore cash from their possession,” said Officer In-Charge of Sadar Police Station Saryu Anand. As per an FIR lodged by SiS Cash Services Limited with Sadar Police Station in December 2019, one Ganesh Kumar Thakur and one Shivam Kumar, both residents of Bihar and custodian of cash supplied to ATMs had fled with over Rs.4 crore. The duo was given the responsibility of supplying cash to at least 20 ATMs in the city, but they fled with the money, police said.
The FIR accused the duo of amassing over Rs 4 crore cash from December 5 to December 14 and fleeing thereafter. Police later found that Ganesh and Shivam were fake names used by the two in a bid to keep their identity undisclosed.
“Their real names were Vipin and Subhash Rajak,” said Anand on Thursday, adding that Prabhash, who was arrested on the day, was uncle of Vipin and Rajkumar was a common friend of the two ATM custodians who perpetrated the crime in 2019.
Several banks across have given the responsibility of supplying cash to ATMs to SiS Cash Services Limited. The cash stolen in 2019 was meant for 15 State Bank of India (SBI) ATMs and five United Bank of India (UBI) ATMs, the private agency had told the police soon after the incident. While ATM breaks were common in the city, this was the first case of ATM custodians fleeing with cash reported in Ranchi, police said.