Dead man’s cards used to withdraw Rs 11 lakh, fumigator held

MUMBAI: The mystery of a man’s bank accounts remaining in active use after his death in June was solved with the arrest of a fumigator recently.


The fumigator, Rehan Ismail Memon (39), the owner of a small hotel, and his accomplice Qayyum Khan withdrew Rs 10.5 lakh from various ATMs in the eastern suburbs using debit cards stolen from the

Chembur

flat of Ralph Coutinho (57), said the police. Memon and Khan had been engaged by Coutinho’s brother to disinfect the flat in Nirmal Ganga Society as Coutinho’s body had been found in adecomposed state.

Coutinho’s two mobile phones were also missing and the culprits probably found the debit card PINs stored in them, said police.

A former merchant navy captain in the US, Coutinho was unmarried and lived alone.

After he died of natural causes on June 2, residents of the society had to take police help to break open the flat door.

After the last rites, Coutinho’s brother Ronald, a resident of Nehru Nagar in Kurla, engaged four men to fumigate the flat and rid it of the foul odour.

“A few days later, Ronald re-activated Ralph’s SIM cards,” assistant police inspector Deepak Kharat said. “No sooner did he switch on the phone than he received several messages, including from Kotak Mahindra and

State Bank of India

intimating the withdrawal of cash and stating the last balance.”

Ronald then approached the banks and the police, lodging a complaint. Investigators found that between June 6 and June 20, Rs 10.50 lakh was withdrawn in instalments from ATMs.

Both of Coutinho’s accounts were frozen, but the culprits had already siphoned off his entire savings.

Senior inspector Shashikant Mane formed a team of police constables Jeevan Mohite, Rana Rajput and Pramod Shinde, who minutely went over the CCTV footage and identified Memon. After much legwork and enquiries with police informers, Memon was identified as the owner of Maharashtra Hotel in Nehru Nagar.

“Rehan initially did not admit to the crime,” DCP (zone 6) Shahji Umap said. “That was till one day when he arrived at the police station and we asked him to show us his purse. Surprisingly Ralph’s debit card was found in it. That nailed his lies.”

The police arrested Memon and he admitted that he had withdrawn around Rs 1.50 lakh while Khan had withdrawn the rest of Coutinho’s money.

Memon said to the police that while they were fumigating the house, he and Khan stole Coutinho’s debit cards and used the last digits of the 14-digit card number as the password.

Khan is still on the run.

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