The CBI has filed a charge sheet against two fraudsters who allegedly collected Rs 25 lakh from gullible people as membership fees for a fake anti-graft body they sought to legitimise with forged documents and letters of an ex-President and a Union minister, officials said Wednesday.
In the charge sheet filed in a special court here, the probe agency alleged that Chennai-based Reningston Sales and Vincent Raju had opened a zonal office of Anti-Corruption and Anti-Crime (ACAC) Wing of India at Chennai and had shown its headquarters address as LokAyoktha Building, Paharganj, New Delhi.
The duo, in a forged letter dated May 11, 2018, showed then President Ram Nath Kovind purportedly congratulating former Chief Justice of India R M Lodha for becoming the president of the organisation set by them, officials said.
The CBI alleged this was done to give legitimacy to the fake organisation that the accused set up.
The accused also allegedly forged a letter in the name of Union Minister of State for Personnel and PMO Jitendra Singh, purportedly intimating all chief secretaries of states about the appointment of Justice Lodha (retired) as the president of the ACAC Wing of India, the probe agency said in its charge sheet.
The accused then collected Rs 25 lakh in a bank account from gullible people by recruiting them as members and office-bearers of their fake organisation as membership fees, it alleged.
They had allegedly withdrawn over Rs 10 lakh from the account created in Indian Bank, Chennai, which proves that “they were beneficiary” of the proceeds of crime, the charge sheet alleged.
During the investigation, the CBI found that Sales allegedly created an email id [email protected] configured with a recovery mobile number 7829015489. The CBI found various visiting cards from Sales carrying the same phone number on which the email ID was configured.
The agency also found various emails exchanged in the name of the former chief justice of India from the house search of the second accused, Raju, whose premises was also used as the office of the ACAC Wing of India.
“To show that ACAC Wing of India is a reputed organisation, the accused had fraudulently printed letterheads, rubber stamps, identity cards and visiting cards of ACAC Wing of India by mentioning ‘Central Vigilance Commission Recognised’ with India’s National Emblem,” an official said.
During the searches at the Sales’s house, the CBI had found various incriminating documents, including appointment letters, resolutions, bank account opening forms, copies of Letters of MoS, PMO and Personnel, trade marks certificate, CVC pledge along with Rs 6 lakh cash, the agency said in the charge sheet.
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