The Central Crime Branch officials busted a surety racket and arrested four people, including two women, on Thursday for allegedly forging property documents to get over 200 undertrials involved in criminal cases out on bail.
The accused are Madhukumar, 37, Ratnamma, 46, Ramadevi, 40, and Narasimhamurthy, 27.
Kuldeep Kumar R. Jain, DCP (Crime), said that the gang operated in various courts and would reach out to advocates offering to get surety for their clients for a fee.
“To do this, they identified people who had passed away and created fake land records in their names. They forged fake property documents and ID cards,” he said.
The gang would then submit these forged documents before the court when an accused needed surety. “They charged anywhere between ₹4,000 to ₹5,000 depending on the case,” Mr. Jain said.
The racket came to light when court officials observed that there was a rise in the number of accused jumping bail. Subsequent warrants issued against them had the wrong address. The matter was brought to the notice of Police Commissioner Bhaskar Rao, who directed the CCB to probe the matter. During the course of their investigation, the police realised that the scam was more widespread than initially thought.
All four accused were produced before court and were denied bail as the investigation is still ongoing. “We are yet to determine if more people are involved in this racket,” said a senior officer.
