Forgery helped Surat gang hit jackpot with stolen cheques

With the arrest of Alpesh Vaghela, the Karanj police claim to have unearthed at least 14 cases of thefts in which Vaghela, along with three others, stole cheques from ATM booths located in various parts of the city.

According to the police, Vaghela is part of a four-member gang which is involved in stealing cheques from ATM booths before forging them to encash them with the help of bogus bank accounts. Cops said the mastermind of the gang has been identified as Harish and the gang has a woman member as well.

Cops said that during interrogation Vaghela reportedly confessed to involvement in 14 thefts cases. He allegedly stole cheques from banks identified as IDBI, Axis, HDFC, ICICI, DCB among others, located in Vastrapur, Anandnagar, Navrangpura, Shahibaug as well as Gandhinagar, sector-21 and Mehsana district.

But the most surprising fact Vaghela is said to have revealed is that there are 24 bogus bank accounts that he made mostly in State Bank of India and United Bank of India. Cops said that Vaghela and his gangs used these bank accounts in order to encash the stolen cheques after forging them.

"The gang used to forge cheques in such a way that even banks failed to detect them.  Despite technologies banks are equipped with, they easily made fortunes with the stolen cheques," said a cop.

KS Savani, Karanj police inspector who is investigating the case, said that he has asked details of cases lodged at various police stations to figure out how much money the gangs made with the stolen cheques.