Cops crack story behind fake accounts

The Cyber Crime Cell of Pune Police has made another breakthrough in investigations into the $425,000 BPO fraud when they cracked the modus ...

The Cyber Crime Cell of Pune Police has made another breakthrough in investigations into the $425,000 BPO fraud when they cracked the modus operandi of opening benami accounts. Sources told Express that two of the arrested — who were working as a travel agent and a marketing executive for a private bank — made use of the documents provided to them by people to open benami accounts.

Sources said travel agent Verghese John and bank executive Anand Karnavat used copies of ration cards given to them either for getting passports made or for getting bank loans to open benami accounts. Using the documents, both John and Karnavat helped other gang members to open benami accounts and transfer money from the four US citizens’ Citibank accounts.

The police on Monday told the Court that it was MphasiS BPO employee Maurelene Fernandes — a team manager — who was the mastermind. The court extended the police custody of Fernandes and Narendra Yadav till April 21.

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Seven others — Ivan Thomas, Shailesh Bhurewar, Stephen Daniel, Siddartha Mehta, Prijimon Philipose, Verghese John and Bijoy Alexander — were remanded to magisterial custody.

The police said they were yet to recover Rs 9 lakh from Fernandes and Yadav. They said while Fernandes had paid Rs 1.5 lakh to a bank as part of the loan repayment and had invested Rs 95,000 in a computer firm, Yadav claimed to have given Rs 1.5 lakh to his father at the time of his marriage. The duo had also purchased over Rs 40,000 worth of jewellery for Yadav’s wedding.

The police said neither the money nor the jewellery had been recovered. A police team would soon be escorting Yadav to Jaipur — from where he hails — to try and recover the money. The police also said they would access Fernandes’s email for more information. They said she had confessed to having made calls to the Citibank, US, from an STD booth to authorize money transfer.

B.A. Aloor and J.R. Jahgirdar representing Verghese John moved an application that he be sent to Sassoon Hospital as he was a chronic patient of retinal hemorrhage. But the police said he was found medically fit when examined on Sunday. The court asked to send the accused to hospital if they complained of any illness.

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