Delhi Police Crime Branch has arrested two persons for depositing black money worth Rs 34 crore in nine fake accounts being operated in the Naya Bazar branch of Kotak Mahindra bank in Old Delhi, police said on Friday.
The arrests were made on the basis of information that one of the accused persons identified as Raj Kumar Goel is involved in illegal transactions post demonetisation.
The Crime Branch has arrested two men Rajkumar Goel (47) and Ranjit (29) last night from Naya Bazar area of Chandni Chowk, said Ravindra Singh Yadav, Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime).
Both the accused were earlier involved in issuing fake bills against bank entries and were involved in theft of sale tax. After demonetisation was announced, they used the opportunity to transfer black money in the fake accounts and earn commission, said another officer.
“He had floated a number of fake companies wherein he used to convert illegitimate money into legitimate money through RTGS (Real Time Gross Settlement) transfers,” the Joint CP said.
Goel and Ranjit were called for interrogation and initially tried to mislead the team by not divulging facts. “later, they confessed that Ranijt, in connivance with Raj Kumar, had opened an account in the name of Raj Enterprises at Kotak Mahindra Bank and the money was received by them in this account through RTGS. The account is used only for such transactions,” said the officer.
Incidentally one Upender, who happens to be the cousin of Ranjit, is the proprietor of the account, he said.
“The accused Raj Kumar had opened various accounts in the name of different firms like RK International, Swastik Trading, Sapna Trading, Mahalaxmi Industries, Shri Ganesh Enterprises, Delhi Trading Company, Virgo International etc. at Kotak Mahindra Bank, Naya Bazar. They had deposited unaccounted cash worth Rs 34 crore in the accounts,” he said.
Two sets of pan cards, voter I-cards, Aadhaar cards etc. have been recovered from them that were used by them for opening different accounts, he added.
With their arrest, police also worked out a cheating case in which a woman Suman Anand, a resident of Greater Kailash, was cheated of Rs 55 lakh in September.
“She had told police that sums of Rs 40,50,200 and Rs 15,20,300 were debited from her Corporation bank account on September 3 and 5 respectively using cheques. “She said both the original cheques are in her possession and forged cheques were used to transfer cash from her account,” said Yadav.
Police are suspecting the role of bank officials and with the accused being remanded to five-day police custody, they will be interrogated to know how they managed to open these fake accounts, said the other officer.
Police will also be probing how they procured the cloned cheque of the woman's account and how she was duped, he added.
later in the day Kotak Mahindra bank issued an official statement about the IT raid, “Income Tax officers visited the branch and questioned the branch manager and no adverse report has been submitted to the bank so far” said Rohit Rao the spokesperson for Kotak Mahindra Bank.