4 arrested for tampering with bank cheques

Mumbai: The Kurar police has arrested three persons for posing as HDFC bank officials and cheating a person under the pretext of clearing a bank loan. The accused also visited the victim’s residence and provided fake identity cards to them. The money was withdrawn using post-dated cheques that the victim had provided to start the loan disbursal process.

The arrested accused were identified as Paresh Shantilal Hingu (29), Jiger Dhirajlal Kareliya (35), Gurmitha Singh Balwant Singh Gujaral (33) and Biren Kaushik Purohit (44). The probe began after Rakesh Chaube lodged a complaint against the fraudsters for having posed as bank employees and cheating him by using the cancelled cheques.  

The investigation revealed that the accused used a special pen to erase the cancellation remark from the cheques and later deposited them to fraudulently withdraw '1 lakh.

“We have found that they would zero in on their victims via social networking websites and would have applied for loans recently. The accused would use the special eraser pens and also imitate the signatures on the cheques to withdraw money,” said an officer of the Kurar police station.

The accused had also taken other details including PAN and Aadhaar card and residential proofs from the complainant. The fraudulent withdrawals were done from the Borivali and Dahisar branches of the bank.

The police identified the branches and after scanning the CCTV footage, identified the accused with the help of the details provided by the complainant. They were found to be criminals with past record.

They have been booked in a fresh case of cheating, impersonation and acts of common intention as per the Indian Penal Code and have been remanded to police custody till September 13.