New Delhi, Oct 29 (IANS) Delhi Police’s Central District has busted a syndicate involved in impersonation of bank account holders and arrested two accused for defrauding bank officials of Rs 22.56 lakh through fraudulent Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) instructions, officials said on Thursday.
Assets worth approximately Rs 2.50 crore, including gold jewellery, 101 gold coins, cash and a SUV, have been seized in the present and connected cases.
One of the arrested accused was also found to be a proclaimed offender who had been absconding for more than seven years in a forged currency case, police said.
The case originated from a complaint filed by the Branch Manager of Bank of India, Rajendra Place, New Delhi. On August 5, a person impersonating Deepak Malhotra, a director associated with multiple corporate entities maintaining accounts at the branch, contacted bank officials.
According to the police, the caller initially discussed creating a Fixed Deposit Receipt (FDR) worth Rs 1 crore to gain the officials’ confidence.
He later contacted them, claiming that the company needed to make a payment but had exhausted its cheque book. He requested that the transaction be processed through email.
The accused sent a forged payment request using an email ID closely resembling the company’s registered address. The email, bearing a forged company letterhead, instructed the bank to transfer Rs 22,56,922 to another account.
When bank officials sought mandatory indemnity documents, the caller pressured them by claiming that similar transactions had been processed earlier and stressing the urgency of the payment. The bank subsequently processed the fraudulent RTGS transfer.
An e-FIR was registered at the Cyber Police Station of Central District under relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).
During the investigation, police traced the defrauded amount to a mule bank account maintained with Bandhan Bank in West Bengal. Technical analysis of telecom records, digital evidence and communication details helped investigators identify the suspects.
A police team led by Sub-Inspector Kamlesh Kumar arrested the accused, identified as Vinay Kumar Yadav, 36, a resident of Loni in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, and Anil Kumar Sehgal, 65, a resident of Noida.
The investigation revealed that the accused used forged company letterheads, deceptive email IDs, social engineering and mule accounts to target corporate bank transactions. The money was subsequently diverted into other assets, including gold purchased from a jeweller in West Bengal.
Police said both accused had previous criminal involvement in financial fraud cases across several locations, including Ghaziabad, Saharanpur, Ayodhya and Faridabad. They allegedly became acquainted while in jail and had previously been associated with cheque-related frauds involving so-called magic pens.
The arrests have also helped police work out six similar cases registered in Gurugram, Palwal and Delhi, involving fraud amounts ranging from Rs 16.65 lakh to Rs 2.98 crore, along with an attempted fraud of Rs 88 lakh.
–IANS
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