Fake racket busted in Bengal, five held for impersonating CBI, ED officials

Kolkata, Aug 26 (IANS) The West Bengal Police, on Tuesday, busted a fake racket operating in the Diamond Harbour city of South 24 Parganas district and arrested five persons in connection with the fraudulent company, police said.

According to the police, the accused were impersonating officers of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Enforcement Directorate (ED), Criminal Investigation Department (CID) and the Narcotics Department to intimidate local businessmen and extort money.

To make it look like authentic, the accused persons had also forged fake certificates and ID cards to carry out the extortion.

Additional Superintendent of Police (Diamond Harbour District), Mitun Kumar Dey, said, “The gang was operating in a filmy style similar to the movie ‘Special 26’. They created a fake outfit named ‘Social Legal Crime Information’ or SICI Crime India Association, through which the fraud was being done. They would pose as central investigation agency officers and extort money from local businessmen.”

Preliminary investigations revealed that the kingpin of the organisation is Falguni Chatterjee, a resident of Kolkata.

A search is underway to arrest the kingpin.

It is learnt that their main office is in South Dinajpur district.

The names of the accused persons are Shujauddin Sheikh, Gopal Barik, Sandeep Barman, Mostaqin Mollah and Jamal Halder.

The accused were produced before court and remanded in police custody.

The arrests were made after the police received several complaints from businessmen in South 24 Parganas district, who alleged that the gang had been threatening them by posing as CBI, ED, and Narcotics Department officers and demanding money.

Following the complaints, police launched multiple operations and arrested the members of the racket one after another.

Fake certificates, multiple fake identity cards and documents of district police administration officials were seized in the operation.

–IANS

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