Palghar, Feb 09 (PTI) The Mira Bhayandar-Vasai Virar (MBVV) police in Maharashtra have detected 16 cases with the arrest of four persons who distracted people at ATM centres and stole their money, an official said on Thursday.

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The MBVV police have recovered a car, cash and mobile phones worth Rs 5.28 lakh from the interstate gang apart from seizing 94 ATM cards, said Suhas Bavche, deputy commissioner of police-zone II, Virar.

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The arrests came on the complainant of a man who was targeted at an ATM near Santosh Bhuvan in Nalasopara, on the outskirts of Mumbai, on December 9 last year.

The man told the police that four persons kept him engrossed in talks, replaced his ATM card with a fake one and withdrew Rs 40,000 from his account, said the official.

Working on surveillance camera footage and other leads, the Pelhar police in Palghar district found that the four are from Ulhasnagar near Mumbai, but they had gone into hiding.

The gang members changed their mobile numbers and moved to Daman, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh to evade police, he said.

In the last week of January, the police learnt about the gang's return to Maharashtra. They were arrested at Shirpur in Dhule district, said the official.

The police identified them as Vicky Salve (32), Vicky Wankhede (22), Anil Veldode (29), and Vaibhav Mahadik (34).

Their interrogation helped the police detect 16 cases in the Mumbai region, Nanded and Madhya Pradesh, said the official. They have stolen nearly Rs 9 lakh by cheating people at ATMs so far, he said.

The four have also been named in more than 15 other cases registered across the state, he said.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)