Two of the eight arrested by the Thane police recently for forging demand drafts (DD) of Rs 175 crore have reportedly confessed to have forged DDs worth Rs 18 crore issued from the Bhandup branch of the Bank of India in Mumbai. The instrument was to be encashed at the bank’s Vasna branch in August by a bunch of fraudsters in Ahmedabad.

The two accused are Anthony Jerod from Mulund and Prabhakar Muslage from Raigad. The Thane police had revealed that the duo had forged the instrument on the instance of one Sushil Sardesai of Mumbai, who facilitated it for the Ahmedabad gang. Earlier, the Ahmedabad police had trapped a Malad-based politician, Vastram Patel and his close aide, Shyam Dhirge in this connection.

Inspector N B Kolatkar, Anti-Extortion Cell, Thane, told Newsline: “The duo are expert forgers and have confirmed to have forged the draft. They have revealed that Sardesai gave a draft of Rs 180 to Anthony who made a spurious draft and changed the amount to Rs 18 crore.”

He added: “Both worked as insurance agents and carried the forgery business discreetly from Mulund. Anthony, who is from Pune, is wanted in another forgery case. He was hiding in Mumbai and had taken a room in Mulund to carry out the work where he brought cheques of small amounts and changed them to figures of Rs 10,000 to 30, 000.”

The duo allegedly worked with two assistant film directors from the Film City in Goregaon. The Ahmedabad police had previously arrested six people from Gujarat in this connection. They have been identified as Alpesh Vyas, Alkesh Rawal, Mayur Patel, Jayant Thakkar, Raju Panchal and Ketan Desai.

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