ATM thieves lay siege on Asaba

•Police arrest suspected fake currency dealer

As the Yuletide approaches, bandits have positioned themselves in and around Automated Teller Machine (ATM) locations in Asaba, the Delta State capital, to dispossess unsuspecting bank customers of their money.

But the state police command, through its public relations officer, Andrew Aniamaka, said it had deployed officers in strategic locations to check the menace, adding that plain clothes spies were on red alert.

It was gathered that the thieves, many whom are young and always well-dressed, hover around bank premises, particularly at very safe distance from the dispensing facilities.

Against popular belief that the hoodlums only practise their trade at night, The Guardian further learnt that the nefarious act also takes place early in the morning and afternoon.

Investigation also revealed that the thieves usually stay in stationed cars at a vintage position to monitor people who to cash money with debit cards.

A victim, who pleaded anonymity, was during the week robbed at 8:00 a.m. in one of the new generation banks on the popular Nnebisi Road within the state capital where he had withdrawn N300,000 with his two debit cards only to be disposed of the sum at gunpoint in the glare of bank’s security personnel who later came around to sympathise with him.

Our reporter also learnt that a lady and an elderly man last week lost huge sums of money to these prowling thieves after making withdrawals with their debit cards at two separate banks with the state capital.

Meanwhile, the Anti-Fraud Unit of the state police command has arrested one 40-year-old Abdulla Shuaibu for allegedly trading in fake foreign currency.

The Commissioner of Police, Zanna Ibrahim, said the suspect was arrested based on a report by a customer (name withheld) who had approached the suspect to exchange N1, 794, 500, 00 for 3,700 Euros, only to discover much more later that all 37 pieces of the 100 denominated notes of the foreign currency he got were fake.