74-year-old Ludhiana man loses over ₹1 lakh in card swap fraud

A 74-year-old man was allegedly duped of over ₹1 lakh after an unidentified accused swapped his debit card and later withdrew the money from an automated teller machine (ATM).

The Division Number 2 police booked an unidentified accused for duping the elderly man of ₹1.14 lakh. The accused had swapped the victim’s card and handed him a fake one.

The victim, Jagbir Singh Vasan, said that he had gone to an ATM near Karimpura to withdraw cash from his savings account on June 5.

He said that he was facing problems in making the withdrawal and a man offered to help him. Expecting him to be a good samaritan, the victim handed over his debit card.

He alleged that the accused swapped his debit card and later used the original debit card to withdraw ₹1.14 lakh at another ATM. On receiving an alert about the transaction on his mobile phone, the elderly man realised that he had been duped and alerted the police.

Assistant sub-inspector (ASI) Malkit Singh, who is investigating the case, said the victim lodged a complaint on Monday. After investigating the case, the police have registered a first-information report (FIR) under section 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) against the unidentified accused.

The police have asked the bank officials to provide CCTV footage of ATM kiosks to identify the accused.