KATHMANDU: Gopalman Rajbahak, who hails from Kathmandu, was busy with his family members on Sunday evening.
The clock was ticking 8:30 pm. All of a sudden he received an SMS alert. The message said, “Dear Gopalman, Rs 1,919,000 has been withdrawn from your A/C xxxxxxxxxxx on 24/11/2019.
He scrambled for the cupboard to check his checkbook. It was intact on the cupboard. No additional checks had been taken off. When he made a telephone call to Janata Bank, no one received the call. His anxiety grew further. It was hard-earned money which was gone in a while, he grumbled to himself.
He had heard the incident of banking heist through ATM hacking by Chinese nationals a few months ago in the capital. The incident struck his mind. “Haven’t the hackers stolen my money?” he asked himself.
He immediately reported the theft to the police. Metropolitan Police Range, Kathmandu then started investigating the case.
The police investigation found that money had been withdrawn from Gopalman’s account. However, Gopalman had not given his check to anybody. The police investigation has shown that somebody had withdrawn money from his account forging his signature and the check.
Police had assumed that someone would go to a branch of Janata Bank with a fake check forged in the name of Gopalman. The police assumption turned out to be true. Someone entered the New Road branch of Janata Bank with the fake check to withdraw the money.
Police had told the Janata bank officials to inform the police as soon as someone comes to withdraw money with the check forged in the name of Gopalman. Later, a person entered the bank holding a fake check of Gopalman. Police were informed immediately.
Police took the fake check holder inside the Bank’s branch itself. Police arrested the other five people involved in the Bank’s check forgery based on the arrested’s information.
Finally, police arrested six people along with Rs 1.85 million stolen from Gopalman’s account.
The arrested are Subhash Shrestha, 19, Kumar Tamang,19, Manish Ghimire, 18, and Anjan Baral, 21, of Kavre, currently staying at Kalimati, and Suman Paudel, 25, of Baglung, currently staying at Buddhanagar and Govinda Ghimire, 30, of Sindhupalchowk, currently staying at Subidhanagar, Kathmandu.
Meanwhile, police confiscated 290 copies of citizenships, specimen of various people’s signatures and two diaries consisting name-lists of various individuals and forms of various banks among others.
According to police, some of those arrested have told the police that they are students.
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