Abdul Karim Telgi: Lived in abject poverty as a child, sold fruit at rail station

Belagavi: He may have amassed thousands of crores through his fake stamp paper scam, but Abdul Karim Ladsab Telgi alias Karim Lala lived in abject poverty as a child and sold fruit at the Khanapur railway station to support his family when still a teenager. Born in Khanapur in 1960, he was one of three sons of the late Ladsab Telgi, an ex-serviceman.

It was after the death of his father that Telgi, who was still in school then, began selling fruit at the railway station. He later completed his bachelor's degree in Belagavi and moved to Mumbai, where he started working as an accountant with a five-star hotel in the early Eighties.

Leaving for Kuwait in 1982 to work in a star hotel, he helped many of his relatives and friends from Khanapur get jobs there during his 10-year stay.

On returning to Mumbai in 1992, Telgi started his own placement agency and helped many youth find jobs in various Middle Eastern countries. In the process he began making fake passports in association with the underworld and was caught by the police. It was then that he came in contact with a gangster, Sony, in the Mumbai jail and joined him in selling stamp papers on coming out of prison in 1996. But within a year, the duo had started creating fake stamp papers using their links with the underworld in Mumbai and spread their network to Mumbai, Bengaluru, Delhi, Hyderabad and various other cities.

At one time Telgi employed about 200 agents across the country and ran his own printing press in Nasik with the help of his brother, Azim Telgi to support his fake stamp business. He was caught for the first time in 1999 by police in Hyderabad when it learnt that the stamp papers he sold were fake. A year later a team of his employees carrying fake stamp papers from Mumbai to Pune was also caught based on a tip-off by informers. A resident of Khanapur, Jayant Kinekar ratted on his illegal activities to various investigating agencies, and this led to his arrest in Ajmer, Rajasthan. In all, around 35 cases were filed against him in various states in connection with the stamp paper scam in 2002 and 2003 and he was sentenced to life imprisonment. During his stay in jail in Mumbai his health deteriorated and more recently he was diagnosed with HIV and diabetes. Having suffered multi-organ failure, Telgi was in a critical condition till he died in a Bengaluru hospital on Thursday.