They duped banks and splurged in Goa
HERALD CORRESPONDENT
MUMBAI, MAY 29
Credit card fraudsters nabbed by Ahmedabad Crime Branch officials last week have now confessed to a personal loan fraud worth Rs 11 lakh which they ran over a period of six months from various private banks. A complaint of cheating was lodged with the Vastrapur Police Station here in a Rs 10 lakh loan case.
The fraudster duo blew up the money travel to places including Goa, Mumbai and Singapore with their friends. Darshan Panchal, 25, and Naitul Rathod, 22, both Ahmedabad residents were nabbed for cheating customers who came to them for getting cash against credit cards, of around Rs 8 lakh. During investigations, Inspector K K Patel found out that Darshan, the elder of the two, had also taken a personal loan.
Panchal used several aliases like Bipin Patel, Ashok Panchal, Vikas Parikh, Ishwar Panchal and Rajesh Shah while applying for loans. He used his own altered photos and forged documents to get loans – Rs10 lakh from HDFC Bank, Rs 40,000 from ICICI Bank, Rs 30,000 from Citi Finance and Rs 30,000 from another private bank, said Patel.
Though he was from a modest background, Panchal loved to live a lavish lifestyle. He started making frequent trips to Goa, where he would spend time in pubs and gamble in casinos. He invested in the share market. Once, he took his friends to Singapore, where they spent five days and six nights.
Panchal wanted to go to the US, and for that he needed a Rs 12 lakh bank balance. However, he could not clear the visa interview three times. Police have now sealed all of Panchal’s three bank accounts.
Crime branch officials suspect the scam is even bigger than they now know, and have appealed to banks and businessmen that if they have defaulters in their 20s residing in Ahmedabad, they should approach the police.
