Man arrested in Kolkata for defrauding banks of Rs 40 crore

A 36-year-old man was arrested on Saturday on charges of defrauding different banks of Kolkata and its suburbs of around Rs 40 crore, police said.

Acting on a tip-off, the police picked up Arindam Ghosh Dastidar from his residence at Dhakuria in south Kolkata for allegedly swindling around Rs 40 crore from different banks in the form of loans.

Police said 17 credit cards and several fake PAN cards were seized from him. Dastidar was even running a small printing press from where he used to produce fake PAN cards and driving licenses, the officer said.

Talking about his modus operandi, officials of Kolkata Police Bank Fraud section said Dastidar used to rent rooms in different parts of the city and the suburbs in the pretext of opening offices of organisations.

Then he used to recruit people at these fake organisations and open salary accounts for them at banks at those localities, he said.

"And then he used to apply for loans from banks on behalf of such fake companies showing fake IT returns as well as PAN cards. He managed to cheat the banks around Rs 40 crore," the IPS officer said.

However, it was still not clear since when he was involved in this fraud.

The accused was earlier arrested in 2003 in a cheating case, he said adding that police were suspecting that there was a gang working with Dastidar.

"It seems quite difficult for a single person to operate such a network single-handedly. We are questioning him," the officer said.