Five held for fraudulently withdrawing Rs 1.35 cr from NRI's account

New Delhi [India], October 19 (ANI): Delhi police busted a gang for defrauding Rs 1.35 crore and arrested five persons including a Germany-based Non-Resident Indian citizen.
They had established a network in India for sweeping away funds from accounts having an enormous amount of money. Several persons fell prey to this online fraudster.
According to the police, the case was registered under section 420 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for cheating and dishonesty in Rajinder Nagar police station in Delhi last year.
The complainant Kanika Girdhar had alleged that in November 2020 she tried to log into her bank account, but access was denied for want of the correct password. After she approached the bank officials, she learnt that her fixed deposits (FDs) had been liquidated and an amount of Rs 1.35 crore had been fraudulently withdrawn through online transfer, cheque and ATM withdrawals.
The bank officials said that a fresh cheque book and new ATM card were issued against her account lately. The bank officials also informed the complainant that the said a new chequebook and ATM card were received by a person who introduced himself as Vishal, brother of the complainant.
The complainant said she has never made any such request to issue any cheque book or ATM card to the bank. She has no siblings.
During the investigation, on the basis of details obtained from the bank as well as technical surveillance, the actual culprit was identified as Sumit Pandey, an employee of ICICI Bank.
He was later apprehended and subjected to interrogation in which he detailed the complainant's account and said by taking advantage of his official position at the ICICI Bank, he got to know that an amount of Rs 1.35 crore was lying in the account.
The police said he later passed on the relevant information pertaining to the complainant's bank account to Shailendra Pratap Singh, kingpin of the syndicate who hatched a conspiracy for withdraw the amount from the complainant's account.
The accused Shailendra Pratap Singh arranged an office at Badkhal Chowk, Faridabad and started office for a fake company named Workforce India Pvt. Ltd. in the disguise of supply of labourers in big construction companies.
He deputed two of his associates namely Jagdamba Prasad Pandey and Rahul there as managers. They eventually hired around 10-odd labourers for the company and made them open their bank accounts in Equitas Small Finance Bank, AU Small Finance Bank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank.
He collected ATM Cards and cheque books of those labourers and after that, they started withdrawing amounts from the ATM cards.
After withdrawal, an amount of Rs 63 only was left in the account. Whereas the offender was so desperate that they deposited Rs 37 only to take the total remaining upto Rs 100 and withdrew Rs 100 After withdrawal, they locked the rented office and disappeared. (ANI)