With the trend of banking scams coming to light, another instance of con has surfaced in the vicinity of Mulund. Three small-time thieves were defrauded when they burgled a bank in Mulund. The incident took place on August 5 when a much larger fraud following the burglary came to light.
The burglars had broken in to Sarvoday Sahkari Patpedhi Limited, a small bank in Mulund on Aug 5 at 10:30 pm. They found a 100 kg iron locker in the bank but as they were unable to open it, they dragged the heavy locker for almost a kilometre before break opening it. To their utter dismay, they found 50 rupees in coins and few blank cheque books inside the safe. The crooks had previously found more money lying in a drawer at the bank (around Rs 400). In total, their loot came up to a grand sum of Rs 480. Confused and dismayed, the thieves hid the locker in the house, burnt the blank chequebooks and fled the scene.
On August 13, when the bank staff members arrived to work and found the place vandalised. 40-year-old Girish Savji, the bank manager, lodged an FIR at the Mulund police station and informed the cops that the locker had contained Rs 14.38 lakh.
Police reports said that the thieves were drug addicts and were in search of money to buy Mephedrone or MD (a form of drug). “They were high even when they broke into the bank on August 5 but this was one trip that would take them straight to jail,” they said.
The police identified the thieves as Mubarak Shaikh and Sufiyan Ansari and arrested them and are on the lookout for the third accused.
The crime branch (Unit 7) then arrested two of the accused; 20-year-old Sufiyan Ansari, and 19-year-old Mubarak Shaikh. During interrogation, they confessed that they had looted the bank but also informed the police that they hardly found any money in the locker.
On August 16, the police finally figured out that there was another angle to the story and the real conman was none other than the branch manager Murli Kadam. Kadam had allegedly taken the cash out of the locker on Friday when some customers had requested to withdraw money. The customers did not come to the bank as promised and he kept the money with him. When the revelation was made that there had been a burglary, he took advantage of the situation and pocketed the amount, Rs 14 lakh.
Shripad Pale, senior inspector of Mulund police station, said, “We will book Kadam as we discovered that he hid the facts and evidence to profit from the crime.”
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