14 bank accounts with same applicant, three men dupe banks of Rs 82 lakh

New Delhi: Crime Branch of Delhi Police has busted a gang of cheats who duped banks. They obtained loans from two branches of the HDFC bank on fake documents and vanished after taking the loans. Two cases were registered at Police Stations Sabzi Mandi and Barakhamba Road in this regard. The amount cheated by the gang was about Rs 82 lakh.

Interestingly, police said that officials of HDFC bank noticed that 14 bank accounts had been opened under different names but all the accounts had the same applicant's photograph. The cheats had managed to generate a fake trail of transactions within these bank accounts and then had applied for credit cards. They had also applied for personal loans and after obtaining the loans, the applicant had vanished. The KYC details were found to be fake. The contact numbers were all shut down.

The three accused Sarvan Kumar, Manish Tiwari and Mohit Kumar were arrested from Patel Nagar Metro station. Total 22 PAN cards, nine Aadhar cards, 21 voter cards, four driving licences and 38 Debit/Credit cards, 15 mobile phones, multiple photographs and registers containing more than 100 bank account details (opened on forged documents), one swipe machine, one laptop, blank application forms and one motorcycle were recovered. They were arrested under an appropriate section of law.

After opening several banks accounts on fake documents, the gang used to maintain balances by rotating cash from one account to another and would often retain the accounts for almost a year to generate faith of the bank and good history. After this, when they became eligible for various cards and loan offers from the banks. They used to apply for loans and cards through net banking.

"Most loans were pre-approved, applied through online route, as per the bank policies and RBI guidelines, as no KYC documents are demanded at the time of loan sanction. After obtaining the loan they vanished," said Additional CP, Crime, Rajiv Ranjan.