NEW DELHI:If you thought crime was restricted to robbery, snatching or lifting, hold your horses. Delhi Police is struggling to tackle a new kind of crime, which is carried out in a rather sophisticated manner. Known as the white-collar crime, it has already put police on tenterhooks.
In the last one year, financially-motivated crimes by educated professionals has gone up to 43 per cent of all the crimes. This has forced Delhi Police to re-strategise the Economic Offences Wing (EOW), Special Cell and Crime Branch.
This year till August 15, police registered 284 cases of forgery and 3,454 cases of cheating. In 2014, a total of 5,290 cases of forgery, cheating, misappropriation and impersonation were registered. The figure was much less at 3,693 in 2013.
Law enforcers have observed that white-collar crimes are mainly planned by young and educated youth, who are tech-savvy. Some of them are failed businessmen or those who are jobless and want to make quick money. Recently, Crime Branch sleuths arrested Amit Chauhan, Vinny Taneja, Sunil Grover and Rohit—all aged between 22 and 29—from the capital for forging dormant bank accounts and withdrawing money from them.
The accused had a unique modus operandi to befool banks and customers. They would get their hands on cheque books with mobile banking and withdraw money by forging signatures and documents, posing as genuine account holders. They would also use ATMs and to obtain details of customers who have handsome amounts of money in their bank accounts for a long time.
Of them, two had worked in private banks as recovery agents; they procured details of such customers from banks with the help of insiders.
However, new forms of white-collar crimes are emerging fast with serious and organised criminals exploiting new technologies and increasingly targeting economic assets and markets.
Interestingly, a large number of Nigerian nationals living in Delhi are also suspected to be involved in these organised frauds. On July 5, a team from the Special Cell busted a gang of Africans for cheating innocent people through popular matrimonial websites like bharatmatrimony.com, simplymarry.com and shaadi.com. Using VoIP and other innovative techniques, the gang fooled people from various parts of the country.
The gang was cheating women by creating and operating fictitious profiles on the matrimonial sites, posing as wealthy NRIs. These cheats were reported to have bought a large number of SIM cards from the UK, US and other countries, which were used from within India on international roaming to mask their real locations and identities.
Police had arrested Nigerian nationals Joseph Irabor Bhahemen, Bawo Hilary Omagbemi and Leniya Magh for cheating a Hyderabad-based girl of Rs 48 lakh.
In 2014, of the total 5,290 FIRs filed, around 4,170 were related to cheating, while 366 were forgery cases. There were 617 cases of misappropriation and 137 cases of impersonation or cases of stolen identity. This year, police registered 64 cases till July 31.
Modus Operandi
Delhi has registered most cases of Internet and mobile banking, matrimonial and job website-related frauds. There have been cases of lottery fraud, ATM card forgery, fake travel agencies and property dealerships as well.
In the last few years, the EOW has received many cases where builders and property dealers have sold flats to gullible people by issuing them fake documents. There have been many instances where real estate firms have been accused of showing promotional documents of projects executed by some other entity to gain investors’ trust. It’s not just restricted to real estate firms; a gang is also misleading people by promising them complete cure from all kinds of disease.
Why Cases Rise
Elaborating about the reasons behind such crimes, Senior Special Commissioner of Police Deepak Mishra told The Sunday Standard, “White-collar crimes are considered a global phenomenon, and India is no exception. Criminal groups can now target victims around the world from any location.”
But what are the major reasons for the increase in white-collar crimes in the capital? Police sources say that lure of quick money and easier execution models have made Delhi one of the major centres of such organised crime. Another major reason is that the accused are not immediately arrested in case of cheating and forgery.
The Cure
Police are keeping tabs on cases related to online fraud, duplicity, forgery and cyber crime. Recently, there have been cases where after mortgaging their properties with financial institutions, people were involved in re-selling the properties to another party. “We have written to all banks in the capital to make information related to mortgaged properties online at a single platform,” said Special Commissioner of Police Taj Hassan. He added that the police is also making a web-based application where it can receive complaints related to bank frauds through the Internet. This will help people file FIRs easily. “We are still in the process of making the online platform, but it will be completed soon,” he said.
Fraud schemes are more sophisticated than before and have forced police to set up another cyber unit in Delhi. In April, a new cyber cell was started in the Crime Branch with an aim to detect cyber crime cases easily.
Cyber crime cases have witnessed a quantum jump over the past few years. Complaints related to social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, fake e-mail IDs, hacking of websites and e-mail accounts, credit card frauds and Internet banking frauds have been lodged.