Hyderabad: A 25-year-old man was arrested by the Chandrayangutta Police in Hyderabad on Friday, April 18, for allegedly cheating multiple ATM users of a total of Rs 46,000 by using a fake PhonePe application to show fraudulent payment confirmations, the police said.
The accused, identified as Abdallah Obaid Al Katheri alias Abdullah, a resident of Bhavani Nagar in Hyderabad, was apprehended near the Axis Bank ATM at Chandrayangutta crossroads, the same location where one of the offences was committed, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Rajendernagar Zone, S Sreenivas, said on Saturday, April 18.
The case came to light on April 7 when a Regional Transport Authority (RTA) agent, Abdul Naser, 36, filed a complaint stating that an unknown person had cheated him of Rs 10,000 while he was making a cash deposit at the ATM. The accused had offered to transfer the amount via PhonePe and showed the victim a fake payment screenshot before fleeing with the cash.
Following registration of the case, a police team acted on credible information and nabbed the accused.
During interrogation, the accused confessed to committing three more similar offences at Chandrayangutta and Kanchanbagh between April 6 and April 15, in which he swindled victims of Rs 12,000 each at ATM locations.
A total of Rs 46,000 was cheated across four incidents, police said. Rs 10,000 was recovered from the accused’s possession.
The accused exploited his victims by approaching them at ATMs, gaining their trust under the pretext of facilitating an online transfer and then showing a fabricated payment confirmation on a fake PhonePe application before absconding with the cash.
The accused has been produced before a magistrate and remanded to judicial custody, the police said.
