The post-pandemic months saw a rise in cases of despicable fraudsters withdrawing money from deceased people’s bank accounts and fake insurance claims, say police
Altamash Shaikh, Shah’s accomplice (right) Parvez Shah, who stole from a deceased doctor
Fraudsters have apparently decided not to let the dead rest in peace, withdrawing money from their bank accounts or claiming their lapsed insurance policies. Two incidents of the former have come to light. One was reported to the Dahisar police on Monday when Akhtari Salim Beg, 62, registered a complaint, stating that someone has transferred Rs 5.89 lakh from her spouse’s bank account. Her husband, who had an account in the Great Bombay Co-Operative Limited Bank in Dahisar East, died on February 22, 2021.
As per the complainant’s statement to the police, when she went to the bank to submit her husband’s death certificate to withdraw the amount, the bank manager told her that he needed to produce an affidavit and succession certificate first. The complaint filed an application in the Bombay High Court in this regard. A couple of months later, she received a call from the bank manager about a transaction via NEFT from her husband’s account.
Beg then rushed to the bank along with her son and the bank manager informed her that five to six NEFT transactions had been made. He also provided the details of the transaction, said an officer. According to the manager, two similar incidents had occurred in the branch earlier and the people concerned had lodged complaints at the Dahisar police station.
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Naresh Bharat Singh, Rohan Naidu and Dipesh Jadhav
“We have registered the case under Sections 419, 420, 465, 467, 468 and 471 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) against the unknown accused and are carrying out the investigation,” the officer added. In the other case, two employees of an outsourcing agency were arrested by the Goregaon police on December 15 for allegedly stealing Rs 1.30 crore from a deceased SBI customer, Dr Hirendra Pal, who lived in Kolkata.
Dr Pal died on October 28, 2014, and had an account in the Sovabazaar branch of the bank in Kolkata. The accused transferred the entire amount to a bank account in Mumbai in 2021. On the complaint of the branch manager, a case was registered in January 2022.
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Under the guidance of Dattatray Thopte, senior inspector, Goregaon police station, API Sudarshan Patil started the investigation which revealed that the victim’s KYC details were updated at the Jawahar Nagar branch in Goregaon and once this was done, the amount was transferred via mobile banking to over dozens of bank accounts in Mumbai.
Five people were booked, including the outsourcing agency employees Altamash Shaikh and Dilshad Khan. The duo transfer the amount to Parvez Shah, 30; Faiz Shah; and Sameer Shaikh. Altamash and Parvez have been nabbed while the others are absconding, said an officer.
“Accessing and updating KYC details can be done only by the branch manager and his appointed staff. Therefore, the manager and other staff are under suspicion. If anything comes up against them, action will be taken,” the officer added. Meanwhile, in October, the Bangur Nagar police arrested two employees of a well-known insurance company who had fraudulently settled several unclaimed and lapsed policies and siphoned off about Rs 1.5 crore.
Sources at the Bangur Nagar police station said assistant managers Dipesh Jadhav, 33, and Rohan Naidu, 32, dealt with cases where policyholders had discontinued paying premiums. As part of their job, they had access to the policy and bank details of customers from across the country. The duo allegedly settled about 50 policies by transferring Rs 1.5 crore to their relatives’ bank accounts.
In another case of scamsters targetting the vulnerable, the Borivli police arrested a 44-year-old share trading agent from Delhi in November for allegedly duping a 77-year-old woman of Rs 3.14 crore. Police sources said the accused, Naresh Bharat Singh, allegedly diverted the complainant Celine Pinto’s funds to a fake Demat account. Singh eventually confessed to the crime and told the police that he was struggling to make ends meet after losing his job during the pandemic.
Pinto, who lives in Shimpoli in Borivali West, owns shares in 16 different companies worth Rs 3.14 crore, police said. The complainant lives with her 92-year-old bedridden husband and 50-year-old differently abled daughter. A letter from a share trading company about a change in name and address alerted Pinto about possible fraud. She then approached the police. A case was registered under Sections 465, 468, 471, 419 and 420 of the IPC and under the supervision of Senior Inspector Ninad Sawant of the Borivli police station, API D Chouhan began the investigation.
The cops learnt that Pinto’s shares were transferred to a Demat account of the Global Capital Marketing Company. From there, the accused sold all the shares and was preparing to transfer the entire amount to the Demat account of Chandrakant Shah, a Vile Parle resident.
“It was later revealed that Shah died in 2017 and someone had made a Demat account in his name using fake documents. We have frozen the account and recovered the entire amount,” said a cop. A police team went to the agent’s office in Kanjurmarg and examined CCTV footage from May. “We got stills of the accused. During the investigation, one person from the office recognised Singh,” the officer said.
In a similar case, which was registered in the Bandra police station in June, an 81-year-old Catholic priest was duped of Rs 2.25 crore in 2021. According to police sources, the priest, who has been bedridden for the past few years, has ICICI Bank and Bank of India savings accounts. During the pandemic, someone carried out about 328 withdrawals in a single month using his debit card, stealing Rs 1 crore. Money was then transferred from the cleric’s ICICI Bank account to the Bank of India account and was withdrawn Rs 10 lakh at a time via cheque.
The case was registered on the complaint of the priest’s nephew Mark Fernandez. No arrest has been made yet. Fernandez told mid-day, “If we withdraw more than Rs 50,000 in cash, the bank sends us a notification or calls the account holder concerned. Here, Rs 10 lakh was withdrawn in one go but no call came from the bank. According to the guidelines of the bank, withdrawals can be done at an ATM only four times a month. So how can 328 transactions be done in one month?”
What the rules say
As per RBI guidelines, a savings account will be treated as inoperative/dormant if no transactions are made over a period of two years. It is the responsibility of banks to make a list of such accounts and check them from time to time and update the KYC of the account holders after sending letters and emails to their addresses.
“The RBI is very strict about KYC updates. In the past, we have imposed fines and collected crores of rupees from those who have not obeyed the rules,” said a reliable source. As per the guidelines issued by the RBI, it is the responsibility of the bank manager to update a customer’s KYC details. “An employee appointed by an outsourcing firm cannot do this at all. If there is any information about any discrepancy, a customer must complain to the department concerned,” the source said.
Rs 1.30 cr
Amount stolen from a deceased SBI customer
Rs 2.25 cr
Amount stolen from ill priest in 2021
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