Demand draft forgery: police say instrument a copy of original

Explaining how the fabrication took place,R S Singh,the branch manager of Dena Bank told Newsline: “The original draft of Dena Bank’s Bhandup Branch was never used. The fraudsters had made a copy of the original and first changed the denomination of the draft. Every bank has denominations prepared for demand drafts limited to Rs 25,000; the fraudsters changed the denomination to Rs 50 crore. Then,the amount of Rs 18 crore was put on the draft.”

The bankers also said that the fraudsters also made two fake signatures of the authorised officers.

Singh added: “The draft that came to us from Bank of India’s branch in Pune had a different texture and was printed on inferior quality paper. That was the first ground of suspicion,as original drafts are crisp. A draft like this can easily pass the ultraviolet test,as the machine that usually catches fudged amounts won’t be able to find a mistake since the whole draft was designed to the desired fashion (amount,denominations and signatures).”

The police have seized the fake instrument from the bank. Inspector J B Gadhvi said: “It has been confirmed that the original draft was not forged at all. The accused used a bogus draft for the fraud. The copy of the same has been procured from the Dena Bank in Pune and further investigations to find the original draft and other documents would follow.”

The draft would be sent to the Department of Handwriting and Questioned Documents for close analysis of the fabrication method.

Meanwhile,the police have taken the suspected mastermind of the case into custody along with another gang member from Mumbai. They said the duo was caught on the basis of information given by Vastram Patel,the politician who was arrested in the fraud on Sunday.