Man siphons off ₹1 Cr from insurance co

An unidentified person in Mumbai has been booked for allegedly siphoning off ₹99.99 lakh from the bank account of ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company by forging signatures on a mandate form. Police are investigating the incident and have traced the accused to Jharkhand.

MUMBAI: Police in Dadar have booked an unidentified person for allegedly siphoning off ₹99.99 lakh from the back account of insurance firm ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company by forging signatures on the mandate form. Police said the modus operandi of the accused appears new and investigation is on to identify and trace the accused.

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According to the police, Vishal Katkar, a resident of Worli associated with ICICI Lombard, approached them in the last week of October, saying somebody had forged signatures of their senior officials and signed the mandate form which authorises banks to conduct auto-debit transactions.

“The mandate form contained forged signatures of senior officers of ICICI Lombard and as per instructions on this form, the bank deducted the amount from the company’s account and transferred it to the fraud’s account in the last week of October,” said a police officer from Dadar police station.

ICICI Lombard has a bank account with the Nariman Point branch of ICICI Bank and the person who is authorised to check the bank account for deposits and withdrawals noticed that on October 29, there was a withdrawal of ₹99.99 lakh using the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). On NPCI, the mandate form was submitted online, and the money was transferred to some other bank account.

The person noticed that the account in which the money was transferred was not linked to the company, and checked with senior officials whose signature was there on the mandate form clearing the money transfer. But they said the signatures were not theirs, and somebody might have forged them.

The accused has been booked under sections 420 (cheating), 465 (forgery), 467 (forgery of valuable security, will, etc.), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating) and 471 (using as genuine a forged document) of the Indian Penal Code.

“We have traced the accused to Jharkhand and a team is on the way to apprehend the accused,” said the police officer.