Bangalore: Super 'Duper' Woman Defrauds Banks of Rs 64 Lac
Times of India
Bangalore, Aug 8: She hasn't studied beyond Class X but she's a class of her own when it comes to duping MNC banks. She conned them into giving her loans worth Rs 64 lac. In the last four years, her victims include Citibank, Standard Chartered Bank and ICICI Bank.
Hemalatha V (27), who ran a paying guest accommodation, used forged documents to raise loans. Her loan-raising spree would have continued, but for Citibank calling the cops. She was arrested on Tuesday.
Citibank, which lodged a complaint with the Ashok nagar police, said three Wipro employees were on the run after availing loans of Rs 3 lac each. The police reached the Wipro office, only to find no such employees were on its rolls.
Using the photograph attached in the loan application, they reached 36th Main Road, BTM Layout and cornered Hemalatha. On interrogation, she revealed shocking details.
"Hemalatha runs a paying guest house, where mostly women software engineers stay. Before taking them in, she would obtain their photos and forge documents using those photos. She has created a library of fraudulent appointment letters, salary details and other documents which look like originals," DCP Central B N S Reddy said.
Hemalatha had been managing the P-G house for the last four years and raised loans in ICICI (Rs 39 lac), Citibank (Rs 25 lac) and StanChart. The police said Hemalatha was a pawn in the racket and the real kingpin is still missing. She was not involved in the printing of fake papers of Wipro and other firms. Her boss, identified as Suresh, provided her forged papers. He always called her from public phone booths, and never revealed his cellphone number.
"She had met Suresh but not contacted him over his cellphone. He used to meet her at her house and give her directions on how to approach the banks," the police said.
Hemalatha paid Rs 27,000 as rent for the BTM Layout house. During the search, the police found about 15 credit and debit cards in different names. She also had a printer and PAN card. She even filed income-tax returns.
Late report:
The police have said that in all she possessed four PAN cards, 13 identities, 14 credit and debit cards, seven appointment letters from IT giant Wipro and passbooks of 14 different accounts in banks like ING Vysya and HDFC.