The Kherwadi police arrested 14 people who allegedly stole blank cheques of two companies, forged signatures and tried to withdraw Rs45 lakh from their account.
The police said that the incident came to light after a person deposited cheques of RNA Construction Company of Rs24 lakh at Punjab National Bank, Matunga.
Bank authorities called the cheque holders for verification because of insufficient balance. The company, thus, found out that 11 blank cheques were stolen from its office. One Krishna Kulkarni, who was asked to deposit RNA’s cheque in his account, was arrested.
“Investigations revealed that Kulkarni, a handicap, required Rs1 lakh for his treatment. A money lender, Raman Patil, asked him to deposit a cheque in his account and withdraw money. In return, Kulkarni would be paid Rs1 lakh,” said an official. The police nabbed Patil. He then revealed the names of his accomplices — Sunit Ramtake, 28, and Dayanand Kargutkar, 31 — and the police recovered two cheques of Rs45 lakh and Rs44 lakh each from them.
“During investigation, from Ramtake’s residence, we recovered six blank cheques of another company, Suminter Indian Organic. Kargutkar then revealed that he got a cheque from one Kishor Kadu, who had received it from an employee of RNA, Laxman Ghule,” said inspector A Chauhan.
“Ghule said that he had stolen 11 blank cheques from the office and given them to Kadu, who had promised him 40% of the amount.”
Ramtake and Kargutkar had also asked their friend Umesh Chhirsagar, 34, that if he provided them blank cheques of any company, they could distribute the money equally.
Chhirsagar then told Rahul Patil, 22, who works at Suminter as a department assistant, about the plan.
