With the arrest of a retired deputy manager of a nationalised bank and two others, Delhi Police 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 Oberoi (26) and Pancham Kumar (30) were arrested from Dwarka after the concerned bank alerted police about the cloned cheques. “They had deposited three cheques worth a total of over Rs5.5 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 Rs13 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. 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.