Man cons bank customers

Chennai: Following two incidents of a well-dressed man posing as a bank employee inside the banks and walking away with customers' money last week in the southern suburban areas, the police have started looking for the con artist who dares to cheat people near the bank counter and under the very nose of the bank officials. Though police sources said two CCTV clippings from the banks indicated that the same man was involved in both the con acts, the police had officially so far not released the image of the suspect.

The first incident happened last Monday at the Indian Bank branch located on M.K.N. Road at St Thomas Mount, when a construction worker, Selvam of Velachery, went to the bank to send Rs7,000 to his parents.As he was standing in the queue near the counter, a well-dressed man, posing as an employee of the bank, reached near him and asked him to show the deposit chalan.

When he showed it to him, he told Selvam that a revenue stamp should be affixed on the chalan. The man collected the chalan and money from him and asked Selvam to bring the stamp immediately from the nearby shop.After enquiring with two-three shops, Selvam returned empty-handed only to find that the man who took his chalan and cash had vanished.
On Friday, the same man staged a similar kind of act at the IOB branch on Pudupet Street in St Thomas Mount. This time, he approached a hotel employee, identified as Perumal, who was in the bank to send Rs13,500 to his parents.

Perumal was waiting for the counter to open after lunch break when the conman approached him with ‘authority’ and checked his deposit chalan. After collecting the money, the man told Perumal to change the chalan as there were a few corrections. When Perumal went to fetch the new chalan the man walked away with the cash.