Using ‘magic pen’, two suspects dupe many by taking cancelled cheques signed

Noida: The Gautam Budh Nagar police on Wednesday arrested two suspects for allegedly duping several people by posing as bank executives and taking cancelled cheques signed with a ‘magic pen’ on the pretext of providing loans to the victims.

According to the police, the gang lured people by promising to secure loans for them and used to make them sign cancelled cheques with a ‘magic pen’ whose ink is erasable, making it easier for the fraudsters to forge the numbers.

Sector 20 police station started investigation into the matter after they received a complaint from a Noida resident on October 21, who alleged that ₹2 lakh was withdrawn from his account through a cheque, even though such a cheque was not issued by him.

“The complainant informed that he was approached by a ‘bank executive’, who promised to arrange a bank loan and offered to come to his house for the formalities. The imposters got the complainant to sign three ‘cancelled’ cheques and promised to



revert with the loan details. However, about one week later, ₹2 lakh was debited from the complainant’s bank account,” said Manoj Kumar, station house officer (SHO), Sector 20 police station.

Following an investigation, the two suspects were arrested from Debon market in Sector 28 on Wednesday evening. They have been identified as Amit Tyagi, a resident of Ghaziabad and Adil, a resident of Meerut.

“Upon interrogation, the suspects revealed that they approached probable victims by getting their numbers from an online phone number directory. Once they found an interested party, the suspects posed as bank executives, with fake ID cards and got the victims to sign cheques using a ‘magic pen’, which has erasable ink. Thereafter, the suspects withdraw an amount from the bank account of the victims,” said SHO Kumar.

The 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, said police.