In a first-of-its-kind incident encountered by India's largest bank, the State Bank of India (SBI), at least Rs 48 lakh was looted by a two-member gang in several SBI ATMs in two days. The development had utterly shocked the police officials and the heads of the banks and they were stunned to know that the gang had looted the money without a corresponding debit in the account.

According to reports, the two-men gang had stolen Rs 48 lakh from 19 SBI ATMs across Tamil Nadu, and of these 19, seven ATMs were in Chennai. After learning about the pile of robbery, the SBI had suspended ATM withdrawals and found out that the theft had been done from a particular kind of Japanese-made cash deposit machines. All the incidents had taken place between June 17 and 19 and similar incidents of robberies had also been reported in other states within the last week, displaying that the gang could be huge. 

In what has become a unique trick of robbery, the two thieves had used the unprecedented technique in looting the money. According to reports, the Chennai police have received seven complaints of cash missing from SBI ATMs in the past three days. When the officials had inspected the surveillance camera in an SBI ATM in Vadapalani, Chennai, they found two suspects, one of them wearing a helmet, withdrawing cash three times, a total of Rs 69,000, on June 19.

The plot has come to light on Tuesday after the SBI bank officials confirmed that Rs 69,000 wasn't debited from the account. Besides Vadapalani, there were similar incidents reported at the SBI ATMs in Ramapuram, Virugambakkam, Velachery, and Taramani. After bracing up the shocking incidents, SBI Chief General Manager R Radhakrishnan had met Chennai Police Commissioner Shankar Jiwal and lodged a complaint. 

While addressing the reporters, Radhakrishnan said, "As a precautionary measure, we have suspended all SBI withdrawals across India. The theft took place only through one type of cash deposit machine." Commissioner Shankar Jiwal said, "The robbery took place using a small technical glitch in the machines. All seven cases have been recorded on CCTV cameras. The footage is being examined and we will check with other banks if they have encountered similar robberies."

The Commissioner has stated that such an operation to loot ATMs was seen for the first time in Tamil Nadu and he assured that the account holders haven't lost any money and the loss is borne by the bank. The police had initiated manhunts to nab the suspects and on Wednesday, the police had arrested one of the suspects and taken him under custody while the search has been intensified for another suspect. 

It has been reported that only SBI cash withdrawal machines were targeted and it had come to light that the gang used a single debut card to withdraw Rs 48 lakh. How the gang unleashed the unique robbery? The investigation has revealed that the gang had used a single debit card and when the cash was in the ATM dispenser, the gang would block the sensor signal for twenty seconds and would take the money. 

According to reports, normally, the ATM would take the money back through this sensor signal if the money was not taken. The ATM would take back the money and the amount debited from the account is credited once again to the account. However, the gang had blocked the sensor, and for the ATM, it was taking back the cash, and in reality, the gang had taken the amount from the dispenser. 

They had looted the money through this trick and the crime had come to light when the bank officials noticed the loss of cash from the ATMs without a corresponding debit in the account. The police had further revealed that the gang members had created a savings account in SBI using fake documents and the officials suspect that they had used some kind of device to block the sensors of the machines. The reports say that the SBI officials have been in touch with the machine manufacturers in Japan to ascertain the technique behind the looting and to fix the technical glitch. According to the latest reports, the special team had nabbed three suspects from Haryana in connection to the robbery.