Three management professionals held for cheating

NEW DELHI - Three business administration professionals have been arrested for duping people in the guise of providing loans, police said Sunday.

Parmod Kumar Sharma, 29, an MBA, and Rajbir Singh, 26, and Mandhir Singh, 24, both BBAs, were arrested earlier this week from Vivek Vihar in east Delhi. Sharma and Rajbir Singh were arrested Wednesday while Mandhir Singh was arrested the following day.

They advertised in leading dailies offering loans and made loan-seekers fill cheques with their own pen carrying a special ink. They would then heat up the cheques using a room heater and the special ink would disappear without leaving any mark behind, said police.

They then misused the loan-seekers’ cheques, rendered blank after the disappearance of the special ink, by filling up amounts of their choice and withdrawing money from their accounts, police said.

“About Rs.105,000 were cheated by the gang from a person hailing from Haryana who had come to meet them in Hauz Khas in south Delhi. Apart from the documents, he was made to sign two cheques worth Rs.200 and Rs.450 but the accused changed the figures to Rs.98,000 and 7,000,” said a police official.

In a similar case, another person was cheated of Rs.85,000 by the gang, he said.

They were also running a men’s salon in Vivek Vihar in east Delhi.

Police recovered a pen with the special ink, 10 mobile phones, 23 Sim cards, four PAN cards with different names but all with the photo of Sharma and 13 debit cards of various banks.

According to police, Sharma did his MBA in 2006. He was the one who opened the salon in Vivek Vihar after completing his education. His father was in the army.

Mandhir Singh, a BBA from Indraprastha University, was the leader of the gang who also procured the SIM cards used for duping people.

Rajbir Singh hails from Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh, but was living in Delhi.

Mandhir and Rajbir were working in Tech Mahindra call centre and came in contact with Sharma three months back.