Two arrested for siphoning off ₹1.29 crore from deceased man’s account

Mumbai: Two persons have been arrested on Tuesday for allegedly siphoning off ₹1

Mumbai: Two persons have been arrested on Tuesday for allegedly siphoning off ₹1.29 crore from a deceased man’s bank account.

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Dattatray Thopte, senior police inspector, Goregaon police station, said that in March the State Bank of India (SBI) officials had approached them claiming that a Kolkata-based doctor, identified as Hitendra Pal, had a savings account with their Kolkata branch, in which he had availed overdraft facility.

The bank officials in their complaint said that their records did not reflect that Pal had died in 2014 and his account was dormant since then. Between May 2021 and October 2021, the bank had received a know your customer (KYC) update request for Pal’s account using forged Aadhaar and Pan cards as proof. Since the documents were in Pal’s name, the bank approved the request. Later, they received a request for activating mobile and internet banking facility, which was also approved. “They also got a request for changing phone number and the account was updated with a new number,” Thopte added.

After a few days, the bank discovered that ₹1.29 crore was transferred from Pal’s account to 11 different accounts using mobile and internet banking. They also found that Pal had died and his account was not used by any of his relatives.

They then checked CCTV footage and found a contractual housekeeping staffer, identified as Dilshad Singh, using the bank’s computers. Dilshad had stopped coming to work after the fraud. He was assisted by another contractual staffer, Mohammad Altamash, who also stopped coming to work.

The bank then filed a complaint with the Cyber Cell in January, which was later transferred to Goregaon police in March and an FIR was registered.

“We questioned the outsourcing agency that employed Dilshad and Altamash, and started a technical analysis to find out who the beneficiaries of the defrauded money were,” Thopte said. On December 12, the police arrested one of the beneficiaries, Parvez Khan, who works as an estate agent. Altamash was nabbed late on December 13. Dilshad is still wanted, according to the police.