White-collar crimes on the rise in city

By S. Shivakumar

CHENNAI, AUG. 25. A less-than-one-ground area becomes 2.84 grounds on paper; land value shoots up to nearly Rs. one crore. The purpose: submission of a proposal for a bank loan. It is subsequently submitted to the Federal Bank, T.Nagar.

The application is expedited and the loan is sanctioned. Only when the person defaults on the loan payment, the bank authorities check the documents and realise they are forged. A senior official of the bank of George Town branch, who was suspended earlier, was arrested this month on charges of conspiring with those who obtained loan amounts using forged documents.

Another bank official obtained anticipatory bail. The bank has been totally cheated to the tune of Rs. four crores involving over 20 cases, according to police.

According to a city central crime branch officer, the easiest way adopted by some criminals to make quick money is to collude with bank officials and share the spoils. If the loan amount is repaid on time the fraud never comes to light.

This year, the city central crime branch has registered over 500 such white-collar crimes involving crores of rupees.

In another case, over 200 job aspirants were duped of several lakhs by a bogus job recruiting agency. While Raju, an accused, was arrested, the other, a Malaysian national, Purushothaman, is still eluding police dragnet.

The job racketeers advertise in newspapers for recruitment in foreign companies and promise fabulous salaries and perks. Invariably, there would be a foreign national on the interview board. In some cases, the racketeers have even conducted selection tests for candidates. They would then collect the passport and a fee ranging between Rs. 20,000 and Rs. 40,000 from each candidate for processing papers. Then, they would vanish.

In one such case, an engineer, now in the U.S., managed to retrieve his passport with the help of police from a slum in Basin Bridge.

The computer era has turned several criminals to indulge in cyber-fraud. A computer company in Mahalingapuram was offered a contract to solve a Y2K problem recently, by another local firm, which had bagged the order from a multi-national. The Mahalingapuram company paid up guarantee-money of Rs. five lakhs for the project. However, they realised later that they were taken for a ride by their Indian `partner'.

Export order forgeries form another ``lucrative area'' for criminals. Balavenkatesh, who was detained under the Goondas Act, had cheated many export companies to the tune of several lakhs of rupees. His modus-operandi, according to police, was to forge export orders and collect his commission from export companies. He even floated his own company called `Lennoxindia', police said. Only when the genuine export companies interact with the ``buyers'', do they realise their folly. By then, it will be too late.

While several finance companies have cheated hundreds of depositors, there are also some finance companies which had been duped by ``vehicle owners.'' The most notorious case was that of Robin Mein, a ``master'' in RC book forgery. He used to collect money from several companies for the same vehicle with different records. Several persons have adopted this technique to dupe financial companies. Investigation in this kind of crime often leads to RTO offices in the city, police say.

Another common method adopted to cheat rich businessmen is to collect huge amounts as commission on the pretext of arranging loans. Last week, the city police arrested a woman who posed as a doctor with contacts in financial firms in U.S. She had duped many persons to the tune of several lakhs on the pretext of arranging loans.

The arrested woman, Padmini, was running ``financial consultancy offices'' in different parts of the State. She allegedly had a lavish lifestyle and met her prospective clients only in star hotels. Two others - Muthukrishnan and Sadagopan - were arrested by the crime branch police on similar charges, police records reveal.

A senior police officer said that even if the criminals are arrested, the victims had to wait to get back their money. People should verify credentials of companies or persons before entering into transactions. Even leading companies, which have legal advisers, had fallen victim to white-collar offenders, he added.

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