Mumbai man arrested for replacing RTGS form from bank drop box – Hindustan Times

MUMBAI: The Sakinaka police have arrested a 40-year-old man from Andheri on Saturday for allegedly replacing real-time gross settlement (RTGS) forms attached to cheques in the drop boxes of nationalised banks, police said.

According to the police, the accused, identified as Anwar Khan, opened the drop box of a nationalised bank and replaced the RTGS form attached to a cheque with another form containing another account number. Also, he carbonised the signature on the form matching the sign on the cheque, the police said, adding he committed the crime right in front of the bank employees without getting noticed.

The Sakinaka police circulated the CCTV grab of the accused to other police stations on WhatsApp to find out whether the accused was wanted anywhere else. “We learnt from the Amboli and Jogeshwari police that similar cases were registered with them,” said PI Dheeraj Gavare, from Sakinaka police station.

The incident came to light when the Balaji Engineering Steel Corporation, located in Andheri east, registered a complaint with the police on January 12, claiming that ₹3 lakh was debited from their account.

The complainant put a cheque of ₹35 lakh in the bank’s drop box with the RTGS form to transfer the money to another bank account of theirs. “This is a standard procedure and the company deposits this form for money to be transferred to another account of theirs,” said Gavare. He said that instead of transferring ₹35 lakh, their account was debited ₹3 lakh.

When the police questioned the bank employees, they said that they made a mistake and transferred only ₹3 lakh instead of ₹35 lakh written on the RTGS form.

Gavare said that when the police checked the RTGS form, they found that the account number written on it was different from the complainant’s account number. “The account number belonged to some Kotanyaga Bhushan from Yes Bank, which turned out to be fake when we checked,” said Gavare.

The police then checked the CCTV of the bank and found a man opening the drop box between 1pm and 3pm on January 12. They found the man taking out a cheque which was attached to a form instead of dropping a cheque inside. “The bank was open then and the man did this in front of the bank employees,” said Gavare.

On a closer examination, the officers found that the accused detached the RTGS form from the cheque deposited by Balaji Engineering Steel Corporation, and replaced the RTGS form with another containing another account number, “The accused also carbonised the signature on the form right under the noses of the bank employees but they could not notice it,” said Gavare.

On Saturday, the police learnt from informers that the accused was spotted in Amboli and was a resident of that area. The police officers arrested Khan for forgery and cheating under sections of the Indian Penal Code.

Police officers said that Khan has an accomplice and they are tracing him now and also questioning the bank employees as this modus operandi could not have been possible without an insider’s knowledge.

“Khan knew exactly which cheque to pick up from the drop box which is suspicious and (it) shows the involvement of someone from the bank. We are, however, checking that angle,” said Gavare.