New Delhi : The Economic Offence Wing of Delhi Police has arrested eight people, including four women, for forging Government documents like PAN card, Aadhaar card and voter IDs. The gang obtained credit/debit cards of various banks on these fake IDs. The police have recovered 63 credit/debit cards, 83 cheque books, jewellery and Rs 14,67,285 cash.
OP Mishra, joint commissioner of EOW, said, “Citibank after its internal audit filed a complaint with Economic Offences Wing regarding identification of 36 customers who got the saving accounts opened in different names and address.”
“During the audit of the bank, it was found these customers procured PAN cards, voter IDs, and Aadhaar cards on fake documents. These customers also had the credit card of Citibank. In the complaint filed before EOW, the complainant (Citibank) also said several customers had procured the credit cards on the same residential address,” he said.
During investigation, the police found that while getting IDs made all the accused had changed their facial appearances by either keeping a beard or by shaving it off. They also got the IDs prepared by using different surnames by the same persons.
The police took the Original Account Opening forms and the KYC details among other documents.
Modus Operandi of the Gang
The accused impersonated fake details like different surnames, date of birth, parentage and address on fake PAN cards, Voter IDs and Aadhaar cards. They opened the accounts in different banks on the basis of these fake IDs to procure credit cards from banks.
They would then use these credit cards for jewellery and other costly items.
“The accused persons had their own swiping machines and they further misrepresented to banks that credit cards were swiped but payment could not credit and got credited provisional payments from the banks,” said Mishra.
The gang members also took loans on these credit cards and absconded by changing their addresses.
The accused made fake debit/credit cards of 13 banks – HDFC Bank, Bandhan Bank, Citibank, Standard Charted Bank, IndusInd Bank, Yes Bank, SBI, ICICI, Axis Bank, Punjab National Bank, Andhra Bank, Union Bank, Oriental Bank. The accused procured maximum credit/debit cards and cheque books on fake id from HDFC Bank (26 credit/debit cards and 30 cheque books).
The gang had procured 31 fake PAN cards, 18 fake Aadhaar cards and 30 fake voter IDs used to get accounts opened in banks and get debit/credit cards and cheque books.
The gang comprised four couples – all arrested now. According to police, the accused have been identified as Ajay Kshatriya and his wife. He got his fake IDs prepared in the name of one Ajay Khatri, Ajay Malhotra, Anish Jain. His wife got her fake IDs prepared in the name of Rekha Khatri, Anjana Jain and Suman Malhotra.
The second accused identified as Manish Kshatriya got his fake IDs prepared under three different names and so did his wife. Kawal Raj, another accused, got his four fake IDs while his wife also got four fake IDs prepared.
Accused Arun Sharma got two fake IDs prepared while his wife prepared one fake ID.
According to police, most of the accused are undergraduate except Kawal Raj who is the only graduate in the gang. All the female accused are homemakers.
“Accused Manish, after facing loss in his business in 2012-13, got involved in various criminal activities. He is the mastermind behind the entire conspiracy and was instrumental in arranging fake government IDs from one Umesh and Ravi Sachdeva,” said Jt CP Mishra.
Mishra also said that Manish used the photo of his family members to create different identities with different names and address. These fake IDs were used to get credit/ debit cards from different banks. After availing the limit, he would not pay the money to the banks.
As the fake IDs were used to take loans from the banks, the bank officials were unable to track them.
