Man held for frauds a former bank loan agent, knew all loopholes: Police

The police said the suspect and his aides executed a series of banking frauds in at least three northern states, including fraud of ₹1.39 crore from the account of a farmer who had received compensation for land acquisition in Gurugram

Investigation into the crimes allegedly committed by a 48-year-old former bank loan agent, who was arrested in Delhi on Thursday for allegedly duping people and transferring amounts from their account by linking his mobile number, revealed that he had expertise in the banking system and knew all loopholes, the police said.

The suspect was identified as Praveen Mittal, of Haryana’s Sonepat, who lived in Gururgam and worked as a loan agent for several nationalised banks

The suspect was identified as Praveen Mittal, of Haryana’s Sonepat, who lived in Gururgam and worked as a loan agent for several nationalised banks. The police said the suspect and his aides executed a series of banking frauds in at least three northern states, including fraud of ₹1.39 crore from the account of a farmer who had received compensation for land acquisition in Gurugram.

Until a week ago, the police were clueless about the identity of the persons responsible and only had CCTV footage from a bank that was collected two years ago. To expedite the probe, the city police recently formed a special investigation team (SIT) under Preet Pal Sangwan, the assistant commissioner of police (crime), to track the suspect and a reward of ₹5 lakh was announced on his arrest.

In the past month, the police arrested six persons, Sanjeev Yadav, Hari Singh, Hitesh Goyal, Amit Chandana, Prem Kumar and Sachin Gupta, all residents of Delhi, in connection with the case but none of them was aware of the real identity of the kingpin. All of them were involved in issuing SIM cards without proper documentation for the crimes.

The Nuh police had rounded up Mittal in Delhi and handed him over to the Gurugram police in connection with a fraud case registered in the city.

The police said they were able to identify him through records of jails. “The breakthrough came from Faridabad jail, where Mittal was lodged last year and later released on bail. Mittal, along with six others, were arrested by the Faridabad police in 2020 in connection with a fraud and later released on bail. The police started checking the records of visitors who had met Mittal in jail. After questioning multiple persons, the police managed to get the WhatsApp number of Mittal,” said Sangwan.

Sangwan said the suspect was absconding for the last two years and was also declared a bail jumper by the local court. He only communicated through WhatsApp.

The police also booked a few bank officials in the frauds.

“Mittal impersonating as farmer applied for changing the mobile number and it was done without proper verification. As per the number, the old mobile number received a notification about the update of new mobile number attached with the account, but the farmer did not receive any such message,” said Sangwan, adding that role of bank officials are still being probed.