Fraudsters' new hunting ground: post offices

A postgraduate in economics was arrested on charges of duping a post office in Delhi by withdrawing money from an account that had been lying dormant for years, police said.

It was his photograph that blew the lid off his fraud. A postgraduate in economics was arrested on charges of duping a post office in Delhi by withdrawing money from an account that had been lying dormant for years, police said.

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The accused, identified as Prashant Raghav, was arrested two years after the post office in Anand Vihar lodged a complaint with the police, that was later transferred to the Economic Offences Wing (EOW).

Police said the accused had received information from a post office agent in Meerut that an account in the name of one Satish Gupta has been lying "inactive".

"Raghav prepared three fake transfer vouchers in the name of Gupta but had to give his original photograph at the time of submission. Gupta had an account in the Meerut post office," said Vivek Gogia, additional commissioner of police, EOW.

"Raghav took these vouchers to the Delhi post office and requested them to transfer the Rs 15 lakh lying in the account. He later withdrew the money in three parts."

Police said they had no clue in the case and the signature and address that Raghav had given on the form turned out to be fake.

"The only clue we had was the photograph of the accused. We matched with the records available with us and found that the same person had been arrested on two occasions earlier for similar crimes," said the officer.

"When we went to his house in Modinagar in Ghaziabad we could not find him. We arrested him outside Karkardooma court when he turned up to attend the hearing in one of the cheating cases," the officer added.

Police said they are now on the lookout for the agent - Yatinder - who provided Raghav the information about the particular account.