MUMBAI: The city crime branch has arrested a 40-year-old man from West Bengal for allegedly siphoning money by stealing RTGS forms cleared by the bank, changing the names of the beneficiary and forging signatures.
The crime branch unit 2 have arrested Abhishek Samanta alias Mitra, a resident of West Bengal, on the charges of theft, cheating, forgery, breach of trust and criminal intimidation, and have recovered six mobile phones, fake election cards, bank accounts in different names, 16 debit and credit cards, RTGS forms, cheques, payee slips, rubber stamps, cleaning powder and details of the transactions of the victim he has cheated.
The case came to light after a banker of Union Bank’s Girguam branch lodged a complaint with the VP Road police in October 2021, saying a payment of Rs 4.17 lakh of their client Tarachand Gala had been transferred from his accounts but hadn’t reached the beneficiary. During the course of investigation, it was learnt that the payment had been credited into the account of another person in West Bengal.
Police then scanned CCTV footage of the particular day, and found a man suspiciously moving in the bank. “Another footage showed him picking up the cleared RTGS slips from the banker’s tray before moving out. Later, he returned, took a fresh RTGS slip, filled the same details, changed the party name (receiver), and kept the RTGS form back in the bank’s tray,” said an officer. When police started looking for the accused, they realised he was the same man arrested by the DB Marg police a few months ago.
“Accused has not studied much, but he is an expert in forging signatures. The initials of the banker are so accurate that it is nearly impossible to differentiate,” said Balsingh Rajput, deputy commissioner of police.
