Using cloned Cheques, Gang swindles Rs 40 lakh from State Govt; 1 Arrested

On Thursday, Police officials of the Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (UP STF) said that a member of a cheque cloning gang making fraudulent withdrawals from the bank accounts of Govt & Non-Govt organisations was arrested in Lucknow’s Vibhuti Khand area on Wednesday night.

The officials added that the gang was operational in different cities of the state, as well as other states.

Inspector General (IG) of Police, UP STF, Amitabh Yash, said a gang member identified as Jaunpur resident Arvind Tewari was arrested but three key members Shadab Anwar Sheikh, Ashraf Alam Khan & Manish Maurya, as well their associates, were still out of Police reach.

He said the gang withdrew nearly Rs 40 lakh from the bank account of Uttar Pradesh Expressways Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA) by cloning four cheques in July. The chief manager of Bank of Baroda’s Vibhuti Khand branch, where UPEIDA has its account, lodged an FIR with the Vibhuti Khand police station on August 8 after detecting the fraudulent withdrawal of the amount, Yash said.

Another STF official said the gang similarly cloned cheques of the bank accounts of Dr Shakuntala Mishra National Rehabilitation University & UP State Ayush Society but failed to get them cleared. He said the gang was operational for the past few years & it was suspected to have withdrawn money from the bank accounts of some Govt & Non-GOvt organisations by using the same method.

The STF official said the gang exploited loopholes in the cheque truncation system (CTS) or the image based clearing system of cheques implemented by Reserve Bank of India from Aug 1, 2013.

He said, “After implementation of this system, cheques are no longer sent for clearance. Only their digital images are sent. This system was implemented to cut down the time required in cheque clearance. It also helps banks in maintaining the data of cheques cleared through the centralised image archival system".

The official said the fraudsters used the sent images of cloned cheques, which could not be detected digitally as they carried correct details of the bank, account holders, account number, cheque number & the balance in the account in question.

He said that “The gang used to procure cheque books of various banks through their sources within the banking system after paying them some money. The gang used to prepare the cloned cheques with the help of printers & laptops & fill them in with details of account holders that they already had procured with help of insiders".

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