With the arrest of a retired deputy manager of a nationalised bank and two others, Delhi Police today claimed to have busted a gang of cheats which was trying to siphon off crores of rupees from the accounts of an established business house using forged cheques.
On Saturday, the trio, identified as retired deputy manager Kaushal Kumar (61), Vipul Oberai (26) and Pancham Kumar (30) were arrested from Dwarka after the concerned bank alerted police about the cloned cheques, police said.
"They had deposited three cheques worth a total of over Rs 5.5 crore from the end of August to early September for clearance from an account owned by a Panipat-based business house at Punjab National Bank. The overdraft account had a withdrawal limit of Rs 13 crore," said Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime) Ashok Chand.
The gang allegedly cloned original cheques by scanning them, forged signature of the account holder and deposited the same at various banks for clearance.
However, as the cheques were worth crores of rupees, bank officials sought clarification from the account holder only to find that the cheques were not issued by him. The bank stopped clearance of the cheques and alerted police which then nabbed the trio.
During interrogation, the trio revealed that the mastermind of their gang is one Gagan, who is on the run. He had got made forged cheques by scanning the original ones.
"He then forged signature of the account holder. Gagan then gave the forged cheques for depositing to Vipul Oberai. Pancham Kumar provided them the name of the account holder in whose account the cheque was to be deposited.
"Vipul Oberoi further roped in Kaushal Kumar a retired deputy manager of a nationalised bank who guided him about the procedure in depositing and clearance of cheques," said Chand. Further investigations are on and efforts are bring made to nab Gagan, police said.
