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Two members of gang duping banks arrested in Chandigarh
Chandigarh Poloce four gold rings, two gold chains, two gold coins, ₹5 lakh cash and a mobile phone from the members of gang allegedly involved in duping banks
The cyber crime team of Chandigarh Police has arrested two fraudsters who had been duping banks.
The accused have been identified as Amarjeet Singh, 31, from Karnal, and Kuldeep Pannu, 30, from Hisar. Police have recovered a Mahindra Thar, four gold rings, two gold chains, two gold coins, ₹5 lakh cash and a mobile phone from them.
The accused were arrested in connection with a case registered on the complaint of Arpan Sharma, branch manager, Federal Bank, Sector 22.
The complainant said the accused called the branch manager from an unknown number and posed as a client of the bank.
The accused told him that he needed to transfer a payment urgently. The manager shared the number with his staff and asked them to speak to the client and do the needful. ₹18,92,000 were subsequently transferred based on directions from the caller.
The WhatsApp account of the said number used a photo of the bank’s actual client. The manger got suspicious when the caller requested another transaction. He called the client’s number registered with the bank and found that they had not requested any transaction.
On March 5, a case was registered under Sections 419 (cheating by personation), 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery), 468(forgery with a purpose of cheating), 471(fraudulent use of forged document) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code at the Cyber Crime police station.
Following a probe, police found that ₹9,57,000 were transferred to an IndusInd bank account and ₹9,35,000 were transferred to a Canara Bank account. Some money was used to purchase gold and the rest was withdrawn through ATMs in Delhi NCR.
The numbers used to make the fraudulent calls were registered in the names of Manish Kumar, Rajaram Meena, Sonu Kumar, and Arjun Singh. Multiple SIM cards were used in the same mobile phone. Raids were conducted in Delhi NCR and Assandh, Karnal, leading to the arrest of the two accused.
Master minds
Police said Amarjeet Singh and Kuldeep Pannu were the master minds of the racket. Their associates withdraw the cheated amount from banks. The accused use their associates’ documents to open bank accounts and obtain SIM cards. During interrogation, Kuldeep and Amarjit disclosed that they were involved in two other cases of loan fraud, in Rajasthan and Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh.
They were out on bail in both cases. In August 2022, they made a new gang with associates Pankaj, Ashish, Ankur Jindal and Ravi. During interrogation, they confessed to have cheated multiple banks of approximately ₹2 crore. These include Federal Bank, ICICI, HDFC, Bank of Baroda, Yes Bank and Axis Bank.
Modus operandi
The accused obtained the details of two-wheeler/four-wheeler vehicle agencies through Google and obtained the bank details/cheque of the agency from the sales manager/managing director. They used these details to forge a cheque, said investigators.
They would contact the manager of the agency’s bank branch and send forged cheques through a WhatsApp account using the display picture of an actual client. They would request an emergency transfer of funds that the banks would approve based on the reputation of the agency’s manager.
