Police busts inter-state gang duping banks thru cloned cheques

Raipur, Jun 03: Capital police on Thursday busted an inter-state gang of frauds duping banks by first opening Current Accounts and then siphoning huge sum of money by putting in cloned cheques which had already been cancelled by the issuers.
Along with arresting the accused who had opened the bank account here in Raipur and siphoned Rs 3.60 crore from the Tatibandh branch of Canara Bank, police also arrested the bank manager for being party with the gang in his fraud.
Giving details, SSP Raipur Ajay Yadav on Thursday, said that the DGM of Canara Bank in Raipur had lodged a complaint in Amanaka police station stating that a man identified himself as Suhash Harish Chandra Kale got opened a Current Account March 8, 2021. Then between March 24 and May 1, 2021, he deposited three cheques purportedly issued by Bihar State Road Development Corporation Patliputra branch of Canara Bank to Kale’s firm M/s. Vishnu Laxmi Developers and Builders. All three cheques were immediately cleared by the Tatibandh branch without undertaking thorough genuineness.
After getting cleared these three cheques, Kale deposited four more cheques in his firm’s account and thus siphoned a total of Rs 3.60 crore. Surprisingly, all the cheques were later found to be cloned cheques of already cancelled cheques issued by various government departments all over the country.
Investigating the case, police recently succeeded in tracing Kale from Nagpur and subjected him to intense interrogation in which he revealed that main frauds Shamim and Ramesh Thakre are running this gang by procuring cloned cheques and then using men like him to open accounts in various banks to commit the fraud.
Kale further revealed that Tatibandh branch’s manager Alok Kumar and cleared all the cheques against a payment of Rs 10 lakh. Following his confession, police brought Kale to Raipur and arrested Alok Kumar as well. Police also seized from Kale a Skoda car and Hyundai i-20 car along with the bank account documents of Canara Bank.
Further investigation in this regard is still underway along with efforts being made to trace Shamim Ramesh Thakre.