5 held for fraud through cloned cheques

New Delhi: Five persons have been arrested in a joint operation by South East District Police and Special Task Force, UP in a case of fraudulent withdrawal of more than three lakh rupees from an account in Okhla on the basis of the cloned cheque.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (South East) Romil Baaniya stated that there was a spree of crime reported for the fraudulent transaction through cloned cheques in Delhi and adjoining states. One such case was registered in Okhla Industrial Area on the complaint of a person stating that Rs. 3,60,500/- had been withdrawn from his PNB account of his firm through a cloned cheque. He was surprised when the original cheque issued by him was returned by the bank saying that the said cheque had already been cleared and money had been transferred into an account in the branch of PNB in Allahabad.

According to police, a team was constituted under the leadership of Additional DCP, South-East M Harsha Vardhan, IPS to coordinate the whole operation with the UP STF team of Dr. Aravind Chaturvedi, Additional SP, UP STF. The accused were arrested from different places.

DCP further claimed that one of the kingpins, Shoaib at Allahabad would get the copy of a bonafide cheque of the probable victim through intermediaries and would pass it to the other kingpin Akash at Delhi. Akash then prepares a cloned cheque by printing account number, cheque number, and signature on an original leaf of the bank. Thereafter they would deposit in the beneficiary account of trusted people and withdraw or transfer. Recently cheated almost a dozen account holders for more than 40 lakh.