Cheque Book Scam

Woman swindled of 2.5 lakh rupees

Next time a cheque book is delivered to you through courier, ensure that it contains the prescribed number of cheques before accepting the consignment.

Here at Bhayander, Varsha mehta has to receive a cheque book which she requested for. She had it delivered to her but later on November 7, she receives an sms notifying that 2.5 lac rupees has been withdrawn from the joint account she is holding with her husband Nalin. When she contacted her Bank she was informed that the cheque issued from her account carried her signature.

On realising that her signature had been forged, Mehta lodged a complaint with the Bhayander police. During investigation, the police learnt that Mehta had received the cheque book from the Sigma Express Courier which has an office at Jesal Park in Bhayander.

The story behind is 'The courier boy Sukumar Nair along with three ICICI employees Chhotelal Jaiswal (28) from Thakur Village, Kandivli branch, Dinesh Chourasiya (25) from the Thakur Complex, Kandivli branch, and Ajay Prajapati (22) is responsible for the fraud. The courier boy manages to open the sealed parcel having the cheque book and after tearing a leaf or two would seal it again and deliver.

Nair then handed over the blank cheque to his accomplices, who deposited the cheque of Rs 2.5 lakh with Mehta’s forged signature into the account of a Charkop branch customer Nikita Khandekar. The money was then withdrawn from Khandekar’s account, again by forging her signature.This kind of fraud though older is still occurring due to the fact that we are not careful enough to verify whether the cheque leaves are in proper condition before receiving them.

The police have appealed to people to ensure that cheque books delivered through courier contains serially numbered leafs as mentioned as it is easy to overlook cheques torn from the middle of the book.