ATM Baba’s crash course ‘passes’ 30 pan-India heists

LUCKNOW: Looking for a startup that could impart training in ethical hacking? All you have to do is do an online search. But ever imagined someone giving a crash course in “breaking open ATMs in just 15 minutes”? Meet Sudhir Mishra aka ATM Baba, his students — unemployed youth, mainly from Bihar’s Chhapra — are now successfully orchestrating ATM loots pan India.

It was after the arrest of some suspects in a recent ATM theft in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh that police first heard about ‘ATM Baba’. The suspects, on April 3, had managed to break into an SBI ATM and made away with a staggering Rs 39.58 lakh in just 16 minutes. It was later discovered that Mishra had orchestrated the entire theft, and his associates, including his friend and accomplice Bulbul Mishra, were among those apprehended by the police.

According to Lucknow police, at the time of the robbery, ‘ATM Baba’ was reportedly present in Bihar and was in constant contact with other suspects via phone. The group, trained by ATM Baba, had with them three gas pipes, one cylinder regulator, a gas meter, six hacksaw blades, one big crowbar, and two pliers, besides black ink to camouflage CCTV cameras. In 15-16 minutes, the suspects managed to rob the ATM and flee.

After the arrest of three of the suspects at 3 o’clock in the night, police are on the lookout for ‘ATM Baba’, and have, so far, rummaged through 1,000 CCTV footage and checked more than 20 tolls around Lucknow to trace him. It was one of the suspects who spilt the beans on the course imparted by Mishra to unemployed youth to ‘graduate’ as part of a well-oiled network, churning money from ATMs.

The three-month ‘crash course’ includes lessons in ‘how to spray a foggy liquid on ATM glass walls and the camera to hide their identities’, ‘cutting through the ATM’s cash box’ and ‘escaping within 15 minutes of the location’. The training will be followed by 15-day live ‘tests’ and only who clear the trial — completing the mission in under 15 minutes — will be sent to the ‘field’. While police have identified more than 30 cases involving the students of ‘ATM Baba’, their hunt for Mishra continues.