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NEW DELHI: Delhi Police have blown the lid off a banking scam in the city in which former and serving bank agents duped customers to open accounts in several banks and diverted the amounts to their own accounts.

The fraudsters appointed telecallers who made calls to customers they picked from bank databases, especially those who rarely visited banks and weren't very conversant with banking procedures.

The telecallers sweet talked the gullible customers luring them with offers of high interests, free credit card and attractive benefits.

Once the customer was hooked, they sent their gang member over to the victim with genuine account opening papers.

And then they played their trick. They asked the customers not to pay through account payee cheques. Instead, these were to be drawn in favour of the bank where the account was being opened.

Once the fraudsters were in possession of these cheques, they deposited them in dud accounts in various banks. The gang had opened these accounts in different banks bypassing mandatory checks with fake PAN cards without statutory reference checks.

The gullible customer lost his deposits. The city police have been tracking these scamsters over the past six months and arrests have been happening since November.

Investigators say the scam would be worth upwards of Rs 15 lakh. "Several new cases of cheated customers are coming to light everyday and this is looking more serious than it appears now," a senior police officer said.

"The fraudsters contacted customers claiming they were presenting them with a rare opportunity to open accounts at steep interest rates. These were privileges being extended to special customers classified as 'platinum members', DCP (southeast) O P Mishra said.

Sohail Soni, 20, a UP resident, and Rinku, a former Citi Financial loan agent, were the brains behind the scam. Both have been arrested. Two other gang members – Sonu Sachdeva and Vikas – too are behind bars. Sachdeva worked for a private investment firm in Noida and Vikas was a loan agent with ICICI's Kaushambi branch.

The scandal came to light when police received a complaint from one Man Mohan Singh Rana, a resident of Sriniwas Puri in southeast Delhi. Two cases were registered, one at DLF Phase II, Gurgaon, and the other at Sector 20, Noida.

The PAN numbers where the funds were diverted were checked and the addresses were found wrong. Two more accounts, opened on the basis of forged documents, were maintained by the gang with the Allahabad Bank branch in Mongolpuri.

The bank officials who opened the account were examined at length. They identified the place where they had gone to verify the address at the time of opening the account in a fictitious name, Girish Verma.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/Another-bank-scam-busted/articleshow/7187855.cms