Ukrainian fraudsters made phone calls to take over ATMs in Bangladesh: Police

Suspected fraudsters from Ukraine cut off the connection between ATMs and the main server after making calls from their mobile phones and then withdrew money without leaving a trace, police say.

The suspects withdrew money from Dutch-Bangla Bank’s ATM booth at Badda several times on Friday night and a suspected member of the ring was arrested from another booth at Khilgaon, leading to the arrest of five more.  

A court remanded the six foreign nationals for three days on Monday.

In CCTV footage obtained from the Badda booth, two foreign nationals are seen entering the booth and withdrawing money using a card several times in presence of a security guard.

The suspects covered their faces with sunglass, cap and piece of cloth.

They were seen making phone calls every time before withdrawing money.

The suspected fraudsters were using roaming option of Ukrainian numbers of the make the calls, Detective Branch Additional Commissioner Abdul Baten told a media conference on Tuesday.

They were communicating with someone in Ukraine before taking control of ATMs to withdraw money, the DB official said.

The money was not taken from any customer's account. No account of that transaction has been recorded in the bank’s main server. But the bank authorities found that Tk 300,000 was withdrawn from the booth.

The six Ukrainians are Denys Vitomskyi, 20, Nazarii Vozniuk, 19, Volodymyr Trishchynskyi, 37, Serheii Ukrainets, 33, Oleg Shevchuk, 46, and Valentyn Sokolovskyi, 37.

They had been planning to travel to India from Bangladesh to withdraw money from ATMS there, according to the DB official.

Police were investigating whether any Bangladesh had any links with the Ukrainians.