Bank loan racket busted, four held

KOLKATA: An Anti-bank Fraud Squad of the detective department on Friday busted a racket that used to deceive people with promises of quick bank loan. The racket used to collect account payee blank cheques in the name of a nationalized bank as security. But within hours, money would get transferred from loan applicants' account to another account.
Kajori Sadhya, a 26-year-old woman, read an advertisement on easy loan sanction against an identity and age-proof.When she contacted the person, she was told to bring five account payee blank cheques in the name of the nationalized bank as security. The person also said that she had to come to the High court branch of SBI, which would be the loan-sanctioning authority.
Accordingly, Kajori went to the bank branch on September 15 and was introduced to the "branch manager and loan-sanctioning authority". She was asked to have at least Rs 5 lakh in her account, otherwise loan may not be sanctioned. After 6pm, she received an SMS of a big transaction from her account. On the next day, she saw the entire amount in her account had been transferred.
After she contacted joint commissioner (crime) Damayanti Sen, detectives swung into action and found that the account to which the fund was transferred was opened with fake KYC documents of one Koushik Bhowmik. Police then checked out the phone at which Kajori used to contact. The SIM, too, was also fount to have been bought with fake documents - electricity bills.
"But the bill has the genuine consumer number. With that cops held Ashok Dutta. Police raided his Muchipara house to find a cache of fake documents. Police then arrested Arindam Roy. Further interrogation led to the arrest of Sandip Sau, an auto-driver, who posed as the tout Kajori met first. Finally, police arrested Barun Nag, an Eastern Railways official," said Sen.
Following a series of raids police recovered cash Rs 4.5 lakh, a Hyundai Getz car from the house of the king-pin of the racket, Arindam Roy. Roy, in fact, posed as the AGM of the branch. Police found that two more people - one at Nadia and another at Raigunj - fell victim of this racket.