Mumbai Crime: 25-year-old uses uncle's debit pin, steals Rs 11 lakh

Think twice before trusting someone with your debit card pin number, even if he or she is family. A 66-year-old jeweller was cheated by his own nephew to the tune of Rs 11 lakh. The victim, Hirachand Soni, had trusted his nephew with his debit card's PIN number, who worked at his jewellery store in Mulund.

However, 25-year-old Laxman Soni, decided to take advantage of the information, and withdraw cash from the ATM without his uncle's knowledge for the last eight months. Laxman had been working at Hirachand's jewellery store for the last seven years as a sales clerk. He is the victim's cousin brother's son.

Police inspector, Prakash Mansukh, from Mulund police station told mid-day, "The victim had given the account's pin to Laxman in May last year. The accused decided to write the number down, and between May 18, 2014 and January 12, 2015, he had been withdrawing Rs 30,000-Rs 40,000 from time to time."

Since Hirachand had not activated the bank's SMS alert, he did not have any idea about the transactions. The incident came to light on January 12, when Hirachand asked his son to update his passbook. They learnt that Rs 11,10,827 was missing in his account. "Initially, when the victim approached us, we could not find any clues.

However, when Hirachand told us that three of his employees knew the PIN number of his account, we brought them to the police station. During interrogation, Laxman confessed to his crime," said Mansukh. According to the police, Laxman sent all the money to his native place in Rajasthan and used it for his sister's wedding and pay off the mortgage of his house.

"In order to verify his claim, we sent a team along with the accused to Rajasthan," added the inspector. Laxman was arrested on Friday and booked under Section 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property) of the IPC and has been remanded to police custody till January 23.