Topi Raja on the prowl!

After nicking every Tom, Dick and Harry that comes his way, he has been rightly nicknamed Topi Raja. A commerce graduate by name Srinivas, this resident of JP Nagar 7th Phase is on the prowl for gullible innocents, promising them jobs and vanishing with their money. His expertise is forgery - rewriting cheques for large sums in an unsuspecting way. The fraudster has been booked for fraud and forgery cases (under Section 406 and 420) in JP Nagar, Mico Layout, Wilson Garden and Jayanagar police stations.

In the latest instance, Topi Raja is reported to have cheated a Bannerghatta-based firm of lakhs of rupees as accounts manager, manipulating the company's cheques and fraudently encashing them. He landed the job posing as a relative of Parvathamma Rajkumar. Five months after he joined the firm, the MD Sri Appa saw through his bluff and found that he had duped the firm of lakhs of rupees.

As accounts manager, he was incharge of the firm's accounts, bank remittances and collections, and misappropriated Rs 8 lakhs belonging to the firm. The culprit used to tamper with the amount for which the firm's cheques were originally drawn. As accounts head, he not only had access to the firm's cheques, he also used to draw them for the original sum, taking care to leave adequate space before the amount mentioned in figures and words. Later, he used to alter the amount and fraudulently encash them.