Kundapur: Con woman who 'helped herself' to lacs with bogus SHG caught
Silvester D'Souza
Daijiworld Media Network - Kundapur
Kundapur, Feb 22: Babi Shedthi, a con woman who was absconding after being accused of cheating hundreds of poor women in the name of pygmy deposits, has been caught.
Wife of Sudhakar Shetty, a resident of Nandikeshwar Nilaya at Korgi here, Babi had been absconding ever since her notority came to light in December 2012.
Babi had made fake passbooks in the name of SCDCC Bank and collected pygmy deposits from poor women in the name of her non-existing 'Nandikeshwak' self-help group.
She began by setting up a self-help group and getting poor women from Hombadi, Mandadi, Heskuttur, Dodderi and other villages to join as members. To make it sound genuine and to win the women's trust, she would even call regular meetings of the 'members'.
She then printed thousands of fake SCDCC Bank passbooks, and collected Rs 5,185 as deposit and an additional Rs 100 every month from each of the women, on the assurance that at the end three years, they would get back Rs 32,000. The hope of getting much more in return was enough to lure the women into investing their hard-earned money into the pygmy scheme. This way, Babi continued to fool innocent women for about two years, fleecing them of lacs of rupees, sources said.
The fraud came to light in December 2012, when one of the women approached SCDCC Bank directly with her passbook to check the status of her account, and was told that no one by the name of Babi Shedthi was registered under them. They even declared her passbook as fake.
The women who had fallen prey to Babi's trick got together and filed a complaint with the police. Since then Babi had been absconding.
The Kundapur police led by crime inspector Revathi has now been successful in arresting Babi. However, details of the police operation that led to her arrest were not divulged.
The police recovered Rs 94,000 in cash, 32 passbooks, 20 voter id cards, a stamp pad and two seals from the accused.
On interrogation, Babi revealed that out of her loot, she gave Rs 73,000 to a man identified as Rajshekar Shetty, and some more money to others.
A case has been filed in the Kundapur police station.