Bhubaneswar, March 5: Police have lost sleep over a hi-tech gang of ATM robbers who loot money but leave the machines intact. The gang is on the prowl in the state for sometime now, but the cops remain clueless.

In their latest strike, the gang allegedly looted cash worth Rs 17.48 lakh from Corporation Bank ATM near Orissa High Court in Cuttack on Thursday night.

Explaining the possible modus operandi of the gang, deputy commissioner of police Satyabrata Bhoi said: "The gang members somehow hack the software of the machine and withdraws money by inserting a chip. We have alerted the bank authorities to upgrade their system to prevent such incidents."

Sources said yesterday the gang made a vain attempt to loot the Corporation Bank ATM in Old Town area. Bhoi, who visited the ATM today, suspect involvement of software experts in the loot as the robbery is done without breaking or damaging the ATM machine.

The cops said similar incidents have also been reported from Balasore and Puri in the past few months.

"ATMs are robbed in such a way that bank officials only come to know about it after going through the bank statement. Involvement of employees of the firm entrusted with the job of depositing cash in the machines cannot be ruled out," said a police official.

The cops said that they would shortly hold a meeting with bank officials to discuss the modus operandi of the gang. "We will ask the bank officials to deploy private security guards at the ATM counters to keep tabs on the gang members. We will soon issue an advisory to banks to prevent such incidents," said a police official.