Crime branch busts major racket, arrests 11 for printing and selling fake certificates, marksheets
Representational Image. Courtesy: Ravindra Zende
Unit-3 of the Crime Branch busted a major operation by arresting 11 members of a gang that was involved in printing fake certificates and marksheets for students seeking admission in colleges across the metropolitan.
According to the police, some customers have even got jobs in reputed firms and government organizations based on the fake certificates provided by the gang.
While 11 members of the gang have been arrested, crime branch officials believe that at least two more are involved in the operation.
The accused would either operate from a cyber cafe in Ghansoli or a flat in Valley Shilp society in Sector-36, Kharghar.
Reportedly, the list of certificates and marksheets the gang specialized in included SSC & HSC, Mumbai University, LLB, Government Diploma, Domicile, Maharashtra State Board of Technical Education and Caste verification. Apart from these, they also provided marksheets from a dozen colleges across the city and death certificates.
According to police, the mastermind of the operation were Deepak Surve and Ashish Pednekar.
Surve owned the cyber cafe from where the gang would operate and Pednekar, whose father was an ex-employee of Reserve Bank of India, owned a printing business. He had learnt the technique behind printing fake certificates and marksheets.
Following the arrest, Police Commissioner Hemant Nagrale said, “We have seized a total of 673 fake certificates and other mandatory documents which comprises of 255 certificates of SSC and HSC board, 299 certificates of Engineering graduates of Mumbai University, 106 caste verification certificates, three validity certificates and 6 other birth and death certificates.”
“The printing machinery and gadgets have been seized from the accused. While from Kharghar flat, the cops have seized fake Dubai Dirhams comprising of 12 notes of 1000 dirhams and 181 notes of 200 dirhams along with the machineries used for printing them,” he added.
Two of the accused, Abdul Mohammd and Abdulla Moiddin, had even travelled to Dubai in the recent past with fake Dirhams and made purchases with them.
