An entrepreneur duped six banks of Rs5 crore

A 45-year-old city-based entrepreneur, Indrajit Chatterjee, duped six banks of more than Rs 5 crore in the last two years and police is in search of him as he is hiding.

Indrajit Chatterjee had introduced himself as a tenant of an residential building located on 19/1A, Zamir Lane in Gariahat and as the owner of an apartment on Syed Amir Ali Avenue while taking a loan of Rs 1.45 crore from the Rashbehari Avenue branch of Karnataka Bank in December 2007.

He submitted the deed of his apartment to the bank as mortgage. On investigation it was found that he submitted the same deed earlier and had taken a loan amounting to Rs 4 crore from five other city-based banks. The accused is originally a resident of Dumurjala in Howrah and owns two offices at Hare Street and Southern Park which have been sealed by the police recently. A senior officer of the city police's detective department told the accused had taken loans for business purposes. His wife had signed as a guarantor in Chatterjee’s loan application, who was the proprietor of a Bengali film producing unit.

Mr Jawed Shamim, deputy commissioner of the city police's detective department said, officers of the bank fraud section are looking for Chatterjee, but till now they have no leads.

A senior city police officer informed Chatterjee first took loan of Rs 1 crore from the Lake branch of Bank of Baroda in 2006. Later in the same year, he took loan from UCO Bank, Allahabad Bank, City Bank and Canara Bank and each time he his apartment deed as mortgage.

Karnataka Bank authorities came to know about the cheating when Chatterjee didn't pay his monthly interest. Bank authorities registered a complaint against Chatterjee in which they said the Chatterjee was not found in the address which he had mentioned in the loan application papers. “We had raided Chatterjee's residence and offices but he was not there. He has gone into hiding with his wife,” the officer said.

Officer said, a few years ago Chatterjee had also allegedly duped the Gujarati Society of Rs 18 crore a few years ago and a case against him was pending in the Alipore special court of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

The officer said the police is thinking of advertising in different media outlets in search of information about Chatterjee.