‘Dead man’ comes to life, defrauds ₹58 lakh from bank; 4 suspects booked
The suspects also roped in a man to impersonate the deceased in order to mortgage an immovable property as collateral security
At least four suspects were booked by Gurugram police on Saturday for taking a loan of ₹58 lakh from a private bank by allegedly using the identity of a deceased person with forged documents, police said on Sunday.
The suspects also roped in a man to impersonate the deceased in order to mortgage an immovable property as collateral security, police added.
Investigators said that the deceased person, whom the suspects ‘brought to life’ by impersonation, had died 11 years ago at the age of 75 years and the property located at Acharya Puri in Sector 12 belonged to him. They said that the loan was disbursed on April 29 last year and it was to be repaid in five years with a monthly instalment of ₹91,806. Police said the suspects are yet to be arrested.
According to police, the matter came to light when the main borrower defaulted in repaying the instalments and bank authorities started looking for him.
Investigators said that the suspects showed the property as their residential house on the documents for the loan but it later came to light that it was an empty plot.
The prime suspect had impersonated the owner of a private firm which is a sub-distributor for a well-known Indian company which runs a restaurant chain and also manufactures packaged snacks. Police said that the loan was taken from the bank on grounds of business expansion.
Police said that the prime suspect is also the grandson of the deceased person who forged documents to show himself as his son.
They said that the suspect had used the empty plot to show it as the registered address of the firm for which they had borrowed the loan besides using it as their residential address. Investigators said he used his three family members and the impersonator of the deceased person as co-borrowers in the loan.
Police said that there was a strong probability that the suspect might have taken more loans from other banks using the same modus operandi which may come to light after further investigations. They said that at least three to four firms were suspected to be registered on the address of the same property against which the ₹58 lakh loan was given by the bank.
On complaint of Saras Kumar, the cluster credit manager of the bank, an FIR against four suspects, including the prime suspect, his wife and his mother was registered under Section 120B (criminal conspiracy), 419 (cheating by personation), 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery of valuable security, will), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating) and 471 (fraudulently or dishonestly using forged document or electronic record as genuine) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) at the Civil Lines police station on Saturday, said police.
Police said though the complaint was submitted on August 24 last year, it was registered only after a thorough probe by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) in which the allegations of forgery and impersonation were found to be true.
Kumar was contacted by HT, but he refused to comment on the matter on the ground that he is not authorised to speak to the media. “You can find all the details in the FIR,” he said.
Rajinder Singh, assistant commissioner of police (City), said that a detailed investigation is underway in the case.