Mumbai Crime: 6 CCI employees held for Rs 1.15-crore fraud

The Marine Drive police have arrested six employees of the prestigious Cricket Club of India (CCI) for allegedly forging documents and taking fake loans from the CCI Employees Co-Operative Credit Society Ltd.

The CCI in Churchgate is one of the oldest and most prestigious clubs in the country. File pic

The police said the accused are members of the credit society's managing committee and have committed a fraud to the tune of Rs 1.15 crore by taking the loans in the names of 35 other employees.

CCI Employees Co-operative Credit Society's secretary Damodar Prabhu, treasurer Santosh More, ex-president Vilas Sawant and managing committee members Pradeep Mandavkar, Hasmukh Rathod and Binnat Chavan were arrested on Saturday.

Modus operandi
According to the police, the alleged fraud had been going on since 2011 and the six accused had forged documents of 35 employees to take out the loans. The amounts were then transferred to the accounts of a construction firm, which subsequently routed the money back to the accused.

The scam came to light when some of the 35 employees realised that loans had been taken in their name. "It is a big fraud. We have arrested the six accused and investigations are going on. We have their police custody till Tuesday," said Senior Inspector Praveen Chichalkar of the Marine Drive police.

'Helped employees'
Located in Churchgate, the CCI is one of the oldest and most prestigious clubs in the city and has the mission of promoting cricket. Around 450 people are employed by the club, of which nearly 300 are members of the co-operative society. Some of them had good things to say about the accused.

"The present managing body of the society has done a lot of good work like giving ration during Diwali to employees, rewarding bright students by giving free books and giving education loans to employees' sons and daughters. They had taken the loans to plan a housing scheme for the employees, but the way they took the money was wrong," said an employee.

Political overtones
The CCI has several employee unions, including an MNS one, and the accused were allegedly also trying to bring the Shiv Sena union into the club. "There are several disputes going on between the employees and the management committee over the various unions affiliated to the political parties.

The arrested people had won with a majority in the last society elections and were planning to bring in another union in the club, and this was opposed by the present union," said an employee.

CCIspeak
"The police have arrested six employees and the money they allegedly took belonged to this club's employees. We are taking legal opinion in the matter," said CCI President Sevanti Parikh.