The Delhi Police has arrested five people and busted a syndicate of inter-State cheque duplicators and recovered a huge number of duplicate cheques of various account holders issued by private banks.
Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police, south district, Chinmoy Biswal said that the accused have been identified as Gaurav Kumar Goel, Ashish Kumar, Amarjeet Singh, Pritam Das, who is a senior manager of PNB, and Sunil Sharma. Another accused Chirag Choudhury is suspected to have fled to the United States of America (USA).
“Apart from the cheques, sophisticated type fonts and restricted ink used to re-print MICR and IFSC codes has also been recovered. Investigation so far has established that over 30 bank accounts belonging to a total of 17 public as well as private sector banks have been compromised. Insiders and 30 party vendors are also involved,” the Additional DCP said
“The compromised bank accounts are located all across India, especially in metropolitan cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Dibrugarh, Chandigarh, Coimbatore etc,” Biswal added. On March 12, 2017, a fraudulent withdrawal of Rs95,00,000 was reported by a complainant from his PNB Account through a PNB cheque, purportedly belonging to the complainant, he added.
“The amount was transferred to another PNB account standing in the name of M/s lucky Timber & Iron Store, PNB Shahbad Markanda Branch in Kurushetra in Haryana. The complainant also informed that the original cheque was in his possession and had never been issued to anybody. Immediately, a case was registered and investigation revealed that the debited amount had further been funneled into various bank accounts soon after being credited to the M/s lucky Timber & Iron Store PNB account,” said Biswal.
The police acted swiftly on the leads and arrested accused Amarjeet Singh, who had presented and got credited Rs95 lakh on the basis of a duplicate cheque. On sustained interrogation, he revealed that the cheque in question had been given to him by Gaurav Kumar Goel along with his associates. After a lot of ground work, Goel was arrested from Noida sector 62, said the Additional DCP.
Goel soon disclosed that he was availing the services of a master-forger called Shanu, who used to fill in critical data like IFSC Code, MICR Code along with the signatures using sophisticated tools at his command.
The arrest of Guarav Kumar Goel led to the search of his associates namely Shanu Thakur and Chirag Chaudhary.
In police custody, accused Gaurav Kumar Goel disclosed that he was in touch with Shanu Thakur over whatsapp only. Technical infiltration using IP locator tools was resorted to under expert supervision and the police team reached the doorsteps of Thakur and he was arrested from Dwarka
Thakur was subjected to sustained interrogation wherein he corroborated the disclosures made by accused Gaurav Kumar Goel and gave detailed insights into the process of cheque duplication.
Chirag was found that he has fled India on March 17 and is presently suspected to be located in USA. It has also been learnt that his father Naveen Chaudhary has also fled India with his son. He has been a Chartered Accountant with good business circle amongst bankers.
Continued investigations led to the arrest Sunil Sharma, a the closest associate of absconding Chirag Chaudhary. Interrogation of Sharma revealed that one of the suppliers’ of cheque leaflets and compromised data bases to accused Chaudhary is Pritam Das. Das was arrested thereafter.
Investigation to bring accused Chirag Chaudhary to justice by opening his look Out Circular (lOC) has been started, Biswal said.