The Noida unit of the Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (STF) busted a Rs 100-crore interstate loan fraud racket, officers said. The eight arrested accused had allegedly created shell firms, laundered money and even sold properties belonging to dead owners for which they had colluded with bank employees and builders.
While in some cases, properties were allegedly purchased in the name of “fake individuals”, in others, “builders colluded to obtain loans”, the STF stated.
The accused, arrested on Thursday, have been identified as Ramkumar, Nitin Jain, Md Wasi, Shamshad Alam, Indrakumar Karmakar, Anuj Yadav, Tahir Hussain and Ashok alias Deepak Jain alias Ricky.
According to a press note by the STF, a probe was launched after one of the inspectors received a tip-off that an organised gang was forging documents, obtaining loans from various banks and selling off properties. The STF said that the accused were questioned and subsequently arrested “based on sufficient evidence”.
The alleged mastermind of the gang, Ramkumar (45), is a former loan executive who worked with HDFC and Axis Bank. The STF press note states, “Accused Ramkumar colluded with various builders to create fake profiles and obtain home loans in their names… the builders returned some of the proceeds to him.”
The STF also found out that he had created two private companies — TSA Software Services Pvt Ltd and Triptechie Pvt Ltd. The gang had been appointing “fictitious individuals as its directors” and using forged Aadhaar cards. Bank accounts for these companies were allegedly opened “in collusion with bank employees,” the statement said. Using these companies and fake identities, the gang funnelled salaries, took personal and home loans, and laundered money.
According to the STF, the gang members had created “more than 20 shell firms” to move and layer the money.
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Two members, Wasi and Alam, would allegedly source recruits mostly from Bihar or men working in Gulf countries. “They lured these individuals with money and then obtained loans based on their profiles to purchase property,” the STF said.
One such property, the STF said, belonged to one Ratna Vasudeva, who stayed in Delhi and had died, while her sons lived abroad. The gang allegedly transferred her property to one Sanaullah Ansari after securing a Rs 4.8-crore loan on it.
Another member of the gang, Anil Sharma, had been arrested earlier in March by the Delhi’s EOW. He had allegedly used similar methods to secure a Rs 1.25-crore loan from LIC Housing, using a forged deed.
Interestingly, Ramkumar is an MBA graduate and Wasi is a secretary at a firm and an MBA and an LLB graduate who has worked as a legal and risk manager at an exchanger company for many years. These accused “lived in high-profile areas”, STF said, adding that several others operated through “fake profiles”, concealing their real identities, and formatted their phones multiple times to remove the chat history from WhatsApp, where they used to refer to each other with pseudonyms.
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The STF also said that it has found “preliminary evidence of loan fraud of more than Rs 100 crore”, stretching across Noida, Lucknow, Varanasi, Haridwar, Chandigarh, Delhi and Gurugram, and detected “the involvement of several builders”. Around 220 bank accounts recovered during searches have been frozen, it said.
A case has been registered under relevant BNS sections, for cheating, impersonation, and forgery, it added.
Saman Husain is a Correspondent at The Indian Express. Based in New Delhi, she is an emerging voice in political journalism, reporting on civic governance, elections, migration, and the social consequences of policy, with a focus on ground-reporting across Delhi-NCR and western Uttar Pradesh.
Professional Profile
Education:
She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science (Honours) from Kirori Mal College, University of Delhi, and is an alumna of the Asian College of Journalism (ACJ), Chennai.
Core Beats:
Her reporting focuses on the national capital’s governance and politics. She specializes in Delhi’s civic administration and the city units of the BJP, AAP and Congress. In western Uttar Pradesh, she mostly reports on crime.
Specialization:
She has a keen interest in electoral processes and politics — her recent contributions include work on electoral roll revisions.
Recent Notable Articles (since July 2025)
Her recent work reflects a strong show-not-tell approach to storytelling, combining narrative reporting with political and historical context:
1. Politics:
“On the banks of the Yamuna, a political tussle for Purvanchali support” (October 6): A report on how migration histories shaped electoral strategies in Delhi before the Bihar elections.
“Explained: How Delhi’s natural drainage vanished gradually over the centuries” (September 29): An explanatory piece tracing the historical reasons that eventually led to the erosion of Delhi’s rivers and its impact on perrenial flooding.
2. Longforms
“Four weddings, three funerals: How a Uttar Pradesh man swindled insurance companies” (October 7): A long-read reconstructing a chilling fraud by a man who killed three of his family members, including both his parents for insurance proceeds. His fourth wife discovered his fraud…
“How Ghaziabad conman operated fake embassy of a country that doesn’t exist — for 9 years” (July 27) : A story on bizarre fraud operation and the institutional blind spots that enabled it.
3. Crime and Justice:
“He was 8 when his father was killed. Fifteen years later, in UP’s Shamli, he took revenge” (October 18): A deeply reported crime story tracing cycles of violence, memory and justice in rural Uttar Pradesh.
“Who killed 19 girls in Nithari? With the SC rejecting appeals, there are no answers and no closure” (July 31): A report capturing the long legal and emotional aftermath of one of India’s most chilling unsolved criminal cases.
4. Policy Impact
“At Manthan, over US tariffs, Delhi-NCR’s apparel industry brainstorms solutions” (September 8) and “Trump’s 50% tariff begins to bite: Agra’s leather belt feels the impact” (August 13) : Reports documenting how global trade decisions ripple through local industries, workers and exporters.
Signature Style
Saman is recognized for her grassroots storytelling. Her articles often focus on the "people behind the policy". She is particularly skilled at taking mundane administrative processes and turning them into compelling human narratives.
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