Bank wakes up to fraud 3 years later

'Techie' customer had submitted fake property documents to procure a Rs 15 lakh loan in his wife's name

'Techie' customer had submitted fake property documents to procure a Rs 15 lakh loan in his wife's name

THE Fraser Town police are on the lookout for a 34-year-old 'techie' who duped a bank three years ago.

Vijaya Bank's Cox Town branch manager Chandra Shekhar has told the police that one Deepak Raj had submitted fake documents and managed to get a Rs 15 lakh loan in his wife's name, portraying her as the 'seller' of the property.

Raj had submitted property documents including the registration of apartments, from the Hebbal sub registrar office. The then branch head Vishwanath Shetty sanctioned the loan after the bank'su00a0 advocate MK Shetty and approver Uday Kumar Shetty both validated and approved the documents.

After completion of formalities, Deepak Raj got the loan amount sanctioned in the name of the seller, who was none other than his wife Shalini. Deepak Raj had claimed to be a software engineer at Merlion InfoTech Solutions, Malleshwaram, a company that bank officials discovered had shut down two years ago.u00a0u00a0

Inside job?

The scam came to light when Raj, who had paid a few installments on the loan, stopped paying and became a defaulter. Following procedure, the bank initiated action to recover the property and officials went to check the premises and found that Raj neither resided at the address nor was available on phone, Chandra Shekhar told the police.

Not surprisingly, the papers too turned out to be fake and the sub registry officials at Hebbal confirmed that the documents were not from their office.

Further verification revealed that Raj had forged the seal and signature of the sub registrar.

The police suspect the involvement of bank officials in the scam, since without it Raj would have found it difficult to get through the three levels of document verification that are required before a loan is sanctioned.

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