Noida: Two held for cheating people of lakhs using 'magic ink' on cheques

Noida, Nov 04: Noida police arrested two persons on Wednesday for posing as bank officials and allegedly cheating people of several lakhs while using a magic pen.

For cheating people, the accused used a magic pen - the ink of the pen is erasable - to get crossed cheques from the loan seekers and then manipulated the content to withdraw money from their accounts, according to a Times of India report.

The police identified the arrested as Amit Tyagi, a resident of Ghaziabad and Adil from Meerut.

Rajneesh Verma, assistant commissioner of police (ACP), Noida said, "On October 21, we received a complaint from a Noida resident that Rs 2 lakh were withdrawn from his account through a cheque even though no such cheque was issued."

Again, a case was registered at Sector 20 police station and during the investigation, police found many such cases.

The police found that the complainants had sought a loan for which they had provided a cancelled cheque to the miscreants.

"Through our sources, we managed to zero down on the accused and arrested them from Debon market in Sector 28 on Wednesday evening. During questioning, they revealed to us that they approached people after getting their numbers from a phone number directory portal. Once they found interested parties, they would organise a meeting with them posing as bank executives," ToI quoted Verma as saying.

Then, some documents, including a cross cheque, were demanded from the loan seeker to process the loan.

"The accused then visited the target's house and asked him/her to sign the crossed cheque with a magic pen. After leaving they would alter the contents of the cheque and deposit it in the bank for withdrawal of cash," said the Verma.

Police recovered five fake ID cards of different banks and 19 Aadhaar cards which were used to get SIM cards to make calls to the victims.

The accused booked under sections 420 (cheating), 467 (forgery), 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (fraudulently or dishonestly using a genuine document) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

The accused were produced in a district court on Thursday. The court sent them to judicial custody.