INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Kathmandu, November 27
Police have arrested six persons for allegedly swindling two million rupees from Gopal Man Rajbahak account in Janata
Bank and one million rupees from Muktinath Development Bank.
Those arrested have been identified as Subas Shrestha,19, Kumar Tamang,19,
Manish Ghimire,18 and Aanjan Baral, 21, of Panchkhal Municipality in Kavre, Suman Poudel, 25, of Galkot Municipality in Baglung and Govinda
Ghimire, 30, of Jyamire Municipality in Sindhupalchowk.
Ghimire and Shrestha, who led the gang, got a cheque book issued in the name of
Rajbahak from Janata Bank branch office at Gwarko, Lalitpur on November 24 and withdraw money from his account.The Bank said it had issued
the cheque book on the basis of a copy of citizenship certificate presented by one of the fraudsters, with the account number of
Rajbahak.
The fraudsters then went to the Baneshwor branch of Janata Bank with the freshly issued cheque book, copied the signature of
Rajbahak and withdrew Rs 999,000 from the bank, without being suspected
Both of them again went to the New Road branch of the bank from where they withdrew a total of one million rupees.
According to police, one
of the fraudsters, in an attempt to trick Rajbahak, called on his mobile phone posing as a bank employee and told him to switch off his
mobile phone to avoid ‘some wrong messages& from the bank
Rajbahak, who is not educated and can barely write his first name, believed the caller and switched off his mobile phone
Later that night when he switched on the mobile phone he received a message from the bank, which stated that Rs 19,99,000 had been debited
from his account.
Rajbahak did not understand the SMS and asked his family members about it and when he came to know that his money was
stolen, he made a frantic call to the police.
Deputy Superintendent of Police, Hobindra Bogati of Metropolitan Police Range, Teku said after
getting the information from Rajbahak, police immediately called the representatives of Nepal Rastra Bank and Janata Bank.
Metropolitan
Police Range suspected that the fraudsters might try again to withdraw money from Rajbahak account for the remaining sum of Rs 800,000 and
laid a trap without informing the media
It deployed its plain clothed police personnel at all branches of Janata Bank
Shrestha visited the bank at New Road to withdraw money from Rajbahak account
He was immediately arrested there, which also led to the arrest of five other gang members.
Police then raided the rented room of the group
leaders at Kalimati and recovered photocopoies of citizenship certificates of some 2,000 persons, along with 329 blank chequebooks of
various banks and 82 ATM cards of NIC Bank
Police seized hundreds of bank documents stacked in two sacks
Blank cheques included those of Jyoti Development Bank, Everest Bank, Machachhapuchre Bank, NIC Asia Bank and Muktinath Development Bank
Fraudsters had collected information details of
Rajbahakaccount including specimen of his signature, and his cheque book
Police suspected that bank employees could have colluded with the fraudsters
&We are closely watching the employee of the concerned bank,& said DSP Bogati.
Parshuram Kunwar Chhetri, CEO of Janata Bank said, &We had
followed all due process to issue the chequebook
We don&t know how they got information about Rajbahak account
We are cooperating with the police,& he added.
NRB Spokesperson Laxmi Prapanna Niraula said his office had been investigating how the gang
obtained genuine documents from the bank.
Police were yet to identify the person whose money was swindled from Muktinath Development Bank
DSP Bogati said, &The Bank officials have told us that one million rupees was transferred to one of the gang member account.&
The post 6
held for swindling Rs 2m from bank appeared first on The Himalayan Times.
