Four held for duping elderly Mumbai investor of more than Rs 62 lakh

A SENIOR citizen was cheated of more than Rs 62 lakh after his demat trading account was fraudulently manipulated by former and current employees of a reputed brokerage firm based in Malad MumbaiThe scam came to light on July 24 when the victim Jayesh Shamjibhai Patel a Borivli East resident who has been trading since 2018 visited the company office to update his KYC Know Your Customer details He was surprised to learn that his KYC had already been updated earlier that monthWhen company staff checked the system they discovered that Patelrsquos bank account mobile number and email ID had been fraudulently altered His registered Bank of Baroda Goregaon branch account had been replaced with that of the State Bank of India Satara branchSubsequently between June 5 and July 4 a total of R6233491 was siphoned off in seven transactions from the companyrsquos HDFC Bank account to the fraudulently linked SBI accountFollowing a complaint filed by Bharat Nanubhai Shiroya 55 director of Comfort Securities under the guidance of DCP Sandeep Jadhav and Senior Inspector Dushyant Chauhan Police Inspector Manoj Patil API Amol Shinde and Constable Tausif Shaikh launched a probe and arrested four men The accused were identified as Omkar Chetiyar 35 a former employee of the brokerage firm and the alleged mastermind Gopal Madvi 44 an employee accused of forging KYC documents and producing fake papers Yogesh Indalkar 44 a cricket coach and friend of Omkar who opened a bogus bank account in Satara and later sold it to Omkar after pocketing R27 lakh and Vijay Pawar 41 a security guard from Chembur who allegedly helped procure a new mobile number and assisted Omkar in opening bank accounts The police said Pawar received R60000 from the fraudulent amountldquoThe modifications were made on May 29 and 30 2025 without following mandatory KYC proceduresThe accused were nabbed from Satara Navi Mumbai and Palghar Investigators revealed that forged PAN Aadhaar and bank cheque copies were used to alter Patelrsquos KYC Patel has denied ever providing these documents said an officer from Malad police stationComfort Securities established in 2002 and a member of the Bombay Stock Exchange and National Stock Exchange since 2007 caters to nearly 10000 clients with trading and demat servicesldquoThe investigation has revealed that Madvi and Chetiyar hatched a plan to commit fraud They targeted accounts that were nonoperational and belonged to senior citizensrdquo said a police officerSo far the police have found that apart from the complainant another personrsquos account was also defrauded and details of that are being obtainedChetiyar used Indalkarrsquos bank account Indalkar was once a cricketer and later became a coach in Mumbai before eventually settling in Satara when things did not work out There he coached players and also umpired matchesPawar and Chetiyar were old friends who lived together in Chembur Pawar had provided the mobile number used in the fraudulent accountIn the KYC documents submitted the cheque originally had Indalkarrsquos name printed on it but that name was erased and replaced with the senior citizenrsquos name which was then submitted by Madvi in the company as KYC proofrdquo the officer addedldquoAll the accused were produced before the court and remanded in police custodyrdquo said another officer