PAN-INDIA BANK ACCOUNTS COMPROMISED

• ORGANIZED SYNDICATE OF CHEQUE DUPLICATORS BUSTED
• EMPLOYEES OF BANKS, PUBLIC AS WELL AS PRIVATE, INVOLVED IN BREACHING CONFIDENTIALITY
• A KEY ACTOR OPERATING FROM USA IDENTIFIED
• 1 LAPTOP, 1 PRINTER, 1 PAPER CUTTER, 1 MAGNIFYING GLASS, 45 FORGED CHEQUES AND 81 CHEQUES RECOVERED.

With the arrest of (1) Gaurav Kumar Goel, aged 34 yrs, s/o Mohan Lal Goel, R/o G-1, Krishna Apartment, Purshottam Vihar, Kankhal, Haridwar, (2) Ashish Kumar Parashar @ Kishley Kishore @ Shanu, aged 28 yrs, s/o Mahesh Kumar Thakur, r/o Plot No. 429, Akshardham Apartment, Sec 19, Pocket 3, Dwarka, New Delhi, (3) Amarjeet Singh, aged 47 yrs, s/o Dilip Singh, r/o 104/15, Bhai Piyar Nagar, Shahbad, Markanda, Kurushetra, Haryana, (4) Pritam Das, aged 54 yrs, s/o Shiv Charan Das, r/o C-3, Phase 1, New Palam Vihar, Gurgaon and (5) Sunil Sharma, aged 42 yrs, s/o Ram Shanker Sharma, r/o WZ-542, Naraina Village, Delhi, the South District Police has busted a complex syndicate of Inter-State Cheque duplicators and has recovered a huge number of duplicate cheques of various public as well as private sector viz. PNB, SBI, HDFC, Bank of Baroda, Axis, Bank of India, ICICI, Canera Bank, Induslnd Bank, Union Bank, Yes Bank, Karur Vysya Bank, Allahabad Bank, IDBI  etc. Apart from the cheques, sophisticated type fonts and restricted ink used to re-print MICR and IFSC codes has been recovered.

The compromised bank accounts are located all across India, especially in metropolitan cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Dibrugarh, Chandigarh, Coimbatore etc. The members’ syndicate arrested represent the head of an iceberg which has infiltrated a large number of bank accounts with active connivance of bank employees/third party vendors, the true magnitude of which is yet to be assessed.  

Incident & Arrests:

On 12/03/2017, a fraudulent withdrawal of Rs. 95,00,000/- was reported by the complainant from his PNB Account No. 01590021000XXXXX (in the name of  Safe Water Network India; a reputed NGO) through a PNB Cheque bearing No. 909671, purportedly belonging to the complainant. The said amount had been transferred to another PNB account No. 0422021001XXXXX, standing in the name of M/s Lucky Timber & Iron Store, PNB Shahbad Markanda Branch, Kurushetra, Haryana. The complainant also informed that the original cheque bearing serial number 909671 was in his possession and had never been issued to anybody. On this, a case FIR No. 92/2017, u/s. 420/467/468/471/120-B IPC was registered in PS Hauz Khas and investigation was taken up. Initial investigation revealed that the debited amount had further been funnelled into various bank accounts soon after being credited to the PNB account belonging to M/s Lucky Timber & Iron Store. Seeing the sensitivity of the matter, a Special Investigation Team headed by Shri R.S. Pathania, ACP Hauz Khas and comprising of Inspectors’ Sanjay Sharma, SHO Hauz Khas, Ramphool/ATO PS KM Pur, Rakesh Kumar, ATO/PS Malviya Nagar, Ajit Kumar, District Cyber Cell/South and Anand Swaroop, IO was formed assisted by SIs Gajender Singh and Arvind from PS Hauz Khas.

Acting swiftly, accused Amarjeet Singh, the holder of PNB Account who had presented and had got credited 95 Lakh Rupees on the basis of a duplicate cheque was traced and apprehended on 12/03/2017. He was subjected to sustained interrogation wherein he revealed that the cheque in question had been given to him by one Rajeev Gupta @ Gaurav Kumar Goel along with his associates. The deal to receive 95 Lakhs of fraudulent money was sealed for a consideration of 30 Lakhs in favour of Rajeev Gupta @ Gaurav Kumar Goel.

Accused Amarjeet Singh knew Rajeev Gupta @ Gaurav Kumar Goel through a chain of contacts but was unaware of his true address or location. The only thing that he correctly remembered was that this suspect was travelling in a Volkswagen car whose four digits of registration were remembered by him. After massive data analysis, the correct vehicle was identified only to learn that it had exchanged three ownerships in quick succession. Thereafter, intensive technical analysis and ground work spread over a fortnight was carried out in various Districts of Western Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand and finally, accused Rajeev Gupta @ Gaurav Kumar Goel was arrested from Sec 62, Noida, UP. At the time of his arrest, over 70 duplicate/forged cheques, issued from various nationalized and private sector banks were recovered from his possession. Apart from these cheques, many stamps of various government/non govt. organizations/banks were also recovered. Some of the stamps were “जिला परियोजना सर्व शिक्षा अभियान हरिद्वार, HILLWOODS ACADEMY Authorized signatory, सहायक वित एवं लेखाधिकारी सर्व शिक्षा अभियान हरिद्वार, कृत भारतीय स्टेट बैंक for STATE BANK OF INDIA प्रबन्धक Manager etc.

Accused Rajeev Gupta @ Gaurav Kumar Goel was subjected to sustained interrogation and he soon spelt out many names of his associates’ in the network. He disclosed that he was in the business of arranging clients for duplicate cheques on a commission. The forged cheques were made available to him for ‘sale’ by a network of operators, primary amongst them being one Chirag Chaudhary of Delhi. Accused also disclosed that he was availing the services of a master-forger called Shanu @ Ashish Thakur @ Kislay Kishore, who used to fill in critical data like IFSC Code, MICR Code along with the signatures using sophisticated tools at his command to complete a cheque leaflet as per the data provided to him by Chirag Chaudhary and others.

The arrest of Guarav Kumar Goel led to the search of his associates namely Shanu Thakur and Chirag Chaudhary. While accused Chirag Chaudhary was soon learnt to have fled India, the search for Shanu Thakur, which involved deep technical research and infiltration by the team, has been one of its kind. In Police Custody, accused Gaurav Kumar Goel disclosed that he was in touch with Shanu Thakur over whatsapp only. However, when the mobile phone of accused Gaurav Kumar Goel was examined, it was found that Shanu Thakur’s whatsapp number was a virtual number subscribed on a United States of America SIM Card. Since it is impossible to track a US cell phone number, technical infiltration using IP locator tools was resorted to under expert supervision which revealed that the Internet Protocol address allocated to the US number being used by Shanu Thakur belonged to an Indian TSP viz. Vodafone India. Quickly, data from Vodafone was requisitioned and by systematic analysis of various dynamic IPs being allocated for a particular time stamp session of whatsapp usage by Shanu Thakur, his real Indian IMEI was deciphered. The resolution of Dynamic IP Addresses, technically known as NAT-ting (Network Address Translation), was carried out by the SIT for the first time. Soon, the team reached the doorsteps of accused Shanu Thakur and this master forger was apprehended from an address in Dwarka, Delhi. From his possession, a sophisticated printer along with 19 forged cheques belonging to various banks and issued against accounts spread over various cities of India were recovered. One laptop (which he used to prepare forged cheque), stamps, high quality magnetic ink (used to print MICR or the Magnetic Ink Character Recognition – a prominent safety feature on cheques) and other articles which were used for duplicating cheques were also recovered.

Accused Shanu Thakur was subjected to sustained interrogation wherein he corroborated the disclosures made by accused Gaurav Kumar Goel and gave detailed insights into the process of cheque duplication. He disclosed that the blank cheque leaflets were provided to him by many operators of the syndicate, primary amongst them being Gaurav Kumar Goel. His job as the finisher was to erase the IFSC and MICR codes and replace them with the provided codes of compromised bank accounts. For this purpose, he used extremely sharp blades to chip away, strand by strand, using his extremely dexterous hands, the printed codes and thereafter, using special ink procured from certain grey markets of West Bengal through a slew of contacts, reprinting the compromised code/s and cheque number/s in the particular font using Corel Draw software and customized ink cartridges. Prolonged exposure to the high iron oxide inks and sharp blades have left permanent scars and burnt epidermis (skin layers) on his hands.

Once the duplicate cheques were complete, he used to forge the signatures’ of the account holder using his amazing instinct at copying. The signatures were mostly provided to him in scanned copies from the database of compromised banks by the network of Chirag Chaudhary and Gaurav Kumar Goel. Apart from a fee for preparation of the cheque, accused Shanu Thakur also had a share in the amount fraudulently withdrawn using a cheque prepared by him in all successful cases. The cheques duplicated by him are of such fine quality that when presented for encashment, it’s next to impossible to detect the fraud, even under examination by Ultra Violet (UV) Rays, as the physical body of the cheque is original and the special ink creates the same electro-magnetic field which is required from an original MICR code.

After the arrests of Gaurav Kumar Goel and Shanu Thakur, efforts were made to locate accused Chirag Chaudhary who was found to be aged 30 yrs, s/o Naveen Chaudhary, r/o E -4/148, Sector 7, Razapur Kalan, Rohini. It was found that he has fled India on 17/03/2017 and is presently suspected to be located in USA. Chirag Chaudhary was running Walk-In Street, a restro-bar at Padam Singh Road, Karol Bagh as a cover to his activities’ apart from running other businesses of gym, spa etc. Accused Chirag Chaudhary is reported to have taken huge amounts of personal and professional loans from various entities and private persons and has also been reported to have deep contacts in various banks from where data pertaining to compromised bank accounts was being passed on. It has also been learnt that his father Naveen Chaudhary has been a Chartered Accountant with good business circle amongst bankers which might have been used as a spring board by absconding accused Chirag Chaudhary to establish his cartel. Naveen Chaudhary has also left India for USA along with his wanted son.

In absence of Chirag Chaudhary, the investigation had seemingly hit a dead-end but soon, continuing investigations and technical analysis revealed an identity called Sunil Sharma as the closest associate of absconding Chirag Chaudhary. His location was found to be in Delhi and he was arrested from Naraina on 09/04/2017. Interrogation accused Sunil Sharma revealed that one of the suppliers’ of cheque leaflets and compromised data bases to wanted accused Chirag Chaudhary is one Pritam Das, Senior Manager, PNB, Khanpur Branch, New Delhi. Information was developed and accused Pritam Das was arrested from New Palam Vihar, Gurgaon on 10/04/2017. When confronted with the evidence collected against him, accused Pritam Das disclosed that he was acting in consort with wanted accused Chirag Chaudhary, known to him through his father Naveen Chaudhary, in compromising the details of various bank accounts of PNB. Accused Pritam Das, being a senior manager, had access to the PNB database and used software filters to find out the transaction patterns of high value accounts and once assured that one or two transactions from such accounts are likely not to raise any suspicion on the part of the account holders’ during the process of verification calls made by bank employees when such cheques are presented for encashment or clearing, used his access to the banks’ database in taking screenshots of the signatures/seal of the account holders and thereafter, used to pass on this sensitive fiduciary information along with sundry details like IFSC and MICR codes of the cheque books issued against the compromised accounts to Chirag Chaudhary for a price.

Investigation so far has established that over 30 bank accounts belonging to a total of 17 Public as well as Private sector banks have been compromised. It is suspected that insiders as well as third party vendors of the compromised banks are involved in this massive conspiracy.

Of the arrested accused, Gaurav Kumar Goel and Shanu Thakur have previous criminal records and have been arrested earlier for similar offences of cheque duplication in Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh. The concerned details are being requisitioned.

Investigation to bring accused Chirag Chaudhary to justice by opening his LOC is being done. Investigation regarding the other compromised bank accounts is also being taken up to unearth the larger conspiracy. Further arrests and recoveries are expected.

Recovery :

1. One laptop
2. One printer
3. One paper cutter
4. One magnifying glass
5. Forged cheques – 45
6. Cheques - 81