Chennai: In what has come as a shock to those utilising post office schemes through intermediaries, a woman postal agent was arrested in Tiruvottiyur on Sunday for allegedly conning several customers and swindling deposit money. Police sources said Amirthammal, a resident of Tiruvottiyur, had been a postal agent for over two decades. Her work involved getting people into opening deposit accounts at post offices and in some cases offering them to deposit their money on their behalf every month.
One such customer was Subramani (70), who had retired after service in a private firm. Police said that he was a close friend of Amirthammal’s husband and decided to deposit the entire post-retirement money he received in a deposit at the post office. Once the deposit matured, he had inquired with Amirthammal the process of withdrawing the money along with the interest amount.
He was allegedly told by the agent that the money would be transfered to his bank account. She had offered to get the money for him and asked him to sign the chalan receipt.
However, as she did not return the money even after months, Subramani got suspicious and filed a police complaint. When the officers inquired, it came to light that the woman agent had spent all of Subramani’s deposit amount. It was also learnt she had managed to use the same modus operandi with several others over the last two years, swindling a total of close to `20 lakh.
Police said apart from spending the maturity amount, she had, in several cases, produced fake deposit cards to customers and had usurped monthly payments they had made. Probe is on to check if if there was a network of such agents.
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