Six persons are now the subject of a police investigation after it was discovered that one of the Guyana Bank for Trade and Industry (GBTI)’s off site ATM machines was tampered with on several occasions.
The bank made the discovery after conducting a routine check as part of their security system control and brought their realizations to the attention of the police.
Stabroek News understands that based on information received the persons were arrested at different locations in the city last Wednesday night and has since been released on station bail pending further investigations.
This newspaper was initially told that there was a fraud at the institution but this was corrected by Radha Krishna Sharma, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) yesterday. He said that a machine was tampered with.
Speaking at his office located at the bank’s Water Street branch, Sharma stressed that none of those arrested are staff of the bank or are in any way connected to it. He explained that routine checks of the ATM’s operations are done to detect any suspicious activity.
On Wednesday night, such a check was made at one of the ATM’s located in the city, during which it was discovered that two males were tampering with the machine using sophisticated devices. Sharma said that further checks revealed that at least four persons appearing in pairs and sometimes alone were also tampering with the equipment.
He told this newspaper that the information was passed on to the police and six persons were subsequently arrested before they were “able to penetrate the bank’s security apparatus.” The perpetrators attempted to commit the crime at different times during the day but were unsuccessful.
He explained that in all branches of the bank’s operation there is an anti fraud mechanism “what they had in mind, they didn’t know what they were doing… we have a very strong system. The internal security mechanisms and internal controls protects against fraud and activities of this nature.”
Yesterday, Sharma made it clear that customers’ account balances were in no way affected by the tampering. “They (the accounts) are intact. There were no unauthorized withdrawals”, he stressed.
When contacted, Police Commissioner Henry Greene told Stabroek News that he is unaware of a fraud at the bank. He however acknowledged that the police were conducting investigations the subject of which was an ATM. However, he was unable to elaborate since he said that he was not in possession of all the information.
