A 27-year-old woman has conned major banks in the IT hub to lend her Rs.6.4 million by producing fake documents, police said.
BANGALORE: A 27-year-old woman has conned major banks in the IT hub to lend her Rs.6.4 million by producing fake documents, police said.
The banks taken for a ride are ICICI bank, which gave her a loan of Rs.3.9 million, and Citibank, which gave her Rs.2.5 million.
The woman identified as V. Hemalatha, who studied up to Class 10, was arrested Aug 4 following a complaint by the banks, Deputy Commissioner of Police B.N.S. Reddy said.
According to the forged documents seized from the paying guest accommodation Hemalatha was running in the post BTM layout here, a man called Suresh appears to be the brain behind the fraud. The woman is only a pawn in what seems to be a big-time racket, Reddy said.
A monthly rent of Rs.27,000 was being paid for the BTM layout premises and Rs.22,000 for the house where Hemalatha stayed in another locality, he said.
Police recovered several appointment letters and visiting cards of Wipro, chequebooks of HDFC and ING-Vysya, credit cards of SBI, Citibank and Standard Chartered Bank, Permanent Account Number (PAN) cards and fake vehicle registration books with government seals.
Reddy said Hemalatha would collect the photographs of her female tenants, mostly software engineers working in leading IT companies, and get fake driving licenses using them. She would then prepare fake appointment letters of Wipro in the names of these women and affix their photos.
She even succeeded in cheating the income tax department as she got three PAN cards using these fabricated documents, he said.
Hemalatha used these documents to open accounts in various banks, manage loans and deposit the amount in a HDFC bank branch. She withdrew the money using ATM counters and never a cheque.
She also paid a few instalments of the loan amount in order to avoid suspicion of the banks.
When Hemalatha defaulted on repayment, the banks lodged a complaint with the police who kept a watch and detained her, Reddy said.
Hemalatha told the police that most of the women whose photographs she had used to prepare false documents had left the place and some might have gone abroad.
Reddy said: "We suspect she might have cheated many banks in a similar fashion. She took the help of one Suresh, for preparing fake documents. He is absconding and we are searching for him."
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