Fake certificate racket unearthed

RAJKOT, Feb 15: A massive racket involving fake Indira Vikas Patras and duplicate shares of leading companies, including Hindustan Lever,...

RAJKOT, Feb 15: A massive racket involving fake Indira Vikas Patras and duplicate shares of leading companies, including Hindustan Lever, Bajaj Auto and Hero Honda, valued at Rs 2.37 crores, was busted by the Jamnagar police on Sunday.

The eight-member gang is also alleged to have duped a Vadodara-based cooperative bank of Rs 1.30 crores by taking loans against the fake IVPs and shares.

According to Jamnagar DSP Ajay Tomar, the racket was masterminded by Ketan Gorania, a Vadodara-based civil engineer, and involved postal department officials in Vadodara and several racketeers in Mumbai who printed the fake certificates.

The racket came to light when the Jamnagar police was informed that two persons in Jamnagar possessed fake IVPs worth Rs 1 lakh. 8220;Prima facie, the postal department certified them as fakes and investigations revealed that the IVPs came from Mumbai8221;, police officials told Express Newsline.

A team of the Jamnagar police then laid a trap in Mumbai and arrested Tapas Roy and Shekhar Bhatt for printing the fake certificates and supplying them to Gujarat. They also seized fake certificates worth Rs 20,000 from them.

It was Roy and Bhatt who told the police that their client was Gorania. 8220;So far, they have supplied fake share certificates worth more than Rs 80 lakhs and fake IVPs worth Rs 1 crore to Gorania. The certificates were of premier companies like Bajaj Auto, Hindustan Lever, Lakme and Hero Honda8221;, Tomar said.

According to the Jamnagar police, armed with the fake shares and IVPs worth Rs 1.57 crores, Gorania applied for a loan of Rs 1.30 crores from the Vadodara-based cooperative bank. When the bank refused to give the huge amount to one person, Gorania put up a number of fronts, including Steel Engineering Enterprise and Paras Doshi, against which two he got Rs 10 lakhs and Rs 20.60 lakhs respectively.

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As per the rules, the bank sent the share certificates for verification to the post offices concerned. And this is where Gorania allegedly played his final card. According to the police, Gorania, in connivance with post office personnel, intercepted the replies sent back by the companies contacted and replaced them with no-objection certificates. Thus the bank did not get to see the letters stating that neither had such certificates been issued nor did the serial numbers exist.

Though the police have arrested the two Mumbai-based printers and picked up two more persons who were helping them, kingpin Gorania is absconding.