Six arrested for cheating 22 banks of Rs 10 crore

Bengaluru: Six people, five of whom are from the same family, have been arrested for borrowing Rs 10 crore from 22 banks using forged documents as collateral.

Police said that the fraudsters — Nagesh Bharadwaj and his wife Suma, Sheshagiri and his wife Shobha, Suma’s brother Sathish and their friend Vedha — are all based in Bengaluru. 

They said the suspects, all in their 50s, created several fake documents of a 2,100 sqft site in Begur between 2014 and 2015. They used the documents to cheat 22 banks. A case had been registered on December 12, 2022.

In his complaint, the manager of a cooperative bank in Jayanagar 3rd Block said that Bharadwaj and Suma borrowed Rs 1.30 crore providing documents for the building on the site. He said they did not repay the loan.

On March 16, investigators arrested Bharadwaj and learnt about the involvement of the others while questioning him. They arrested the others and learnt that they had changed survey and site numbers, altered the plot’s square feet area, created a deed using the fake documents and registered it with the sub-registrar’s office. They provided the documents to 22 banks, some of them nationalised and cooperatives, and received a loan of Rs 10 crore.

"The banks became aware of the fraud when the loans were defaulted and the documents were examined," an investigator said. “We are also examining if anyone inside the bank was involved in the crime."

All six were sent to judicial custody, the police said.