Wardha ATM-swap fraud accused arrested from Uttar Pradesh

Madhuri Ambadas Gawai, 35, a resident of Pankaj Colony, Swami Samarth Mandir, Amravati, filed a complaint at Wardha (City) police station. She said that on August 2, 2026, at around 9.10 am, she arrived in Wardha from Amravati by train. As she had no cash with her, she went to an HDFC Bank ATM near the railway station at around 10.35 am. Two unknown men were already present there.

Gawai said she tried to withdraw 2,000 rupees from the ATM, when one of the men told her the transaction had not gone through and would only be completed once a slip came out. She then inserted her card into the machine again. During this, the accused, who was wearing a black T-shirt, distracted her and cleverly kept her original ATM card, handing her another card in its place before leaving.

A short while later, as Gawai was on her way to a hospital, she received a message on her phone that a total of 48,000 rupees had been withdrawn from her UCO Bank account in five separate transactions. The two unidentified accused had thus defrauded her of 48,000 rupees by swapping her ATM card. Based on her complaint, a case was registered at Wardha (City) police station under Crime No. 1257/2026, under sections 318(4) and 3(5) of the BNS 2023, and an investigation was launched.

The case was also being investigated in parallel by Wardha's local crime branch. Based on the description of the accused present at the ATM given by the complainant, it was found that he was Jamshed Ali Shaukat Ali, a resident of near Jama Masjid, Babri, Shamli district, Uttar Pradesh. This information was passed on to senior officers, on whose orders a team left for Uttar Pradesh. However, on reaching there, it was found that the accused had not come home.

Subsequently, on September 16, 2026, during a search for the accused in the Wardha area, information was received that a man was moving suspiciously near the Sevagram railway station area on a white TVS Apache motorcycle without a number plate. When the police team reached the Sevagram railway station area, they found Jamshed Ali Shaukat Ali, 45. During questioning, he admitted that he had committed the crime along with his associate Sawez Ali, a resident of Gangeru, Shamli district, Uttar Pradesh.

A search of the accused led to the seizure of 48,000 rupees in cash in 500-rupee notes, the white TVS Apache motorcycle with a red stripe and no number plate used in the crime, valued at 1,50,000 rupees, a black helmet worth 1,000 rupees, and one Canara Bank and one Union Bank ATM card. In all, property worth 1,99,000 rupees was seized from the accused, who was handed over to Wardha (City) police station for further investigation.

According to police, the accused Jamshed Ali Shaukat Ali is habituated to committing such crimes, and it is suspected he may have committed several similar offences in other districts as well as other states, which could come to light in the coming days.

The entire operation was carried out under the guidance of Superintendent of Police Saurabh Kumar Agrawal and Additional Superintendent of Police Sadashiv Waghmare. Police Inspector Vinod Chaudhary, Police Sub-Inspector Rahul Itekar, Police Sub-Inspector Salam Qureshi, and police personnel Sachin Ingole, Bhushan Nighot, Narendra Parashar, Dharmendra Akali, Vikram Kalmegh, Amol Nagrale, Mangesh Chavre, Govind Munde, Arvind Ingole, Rahul Adhwal, Ritesh Getme and Mithun Jichkar, all posted at the local crime branch, Wardha, took part in the operation.