When A Fruit Seller Committed A Scam Of 32000 Crore Rupees

The stamp paper scam was a counterfeit stamp paper scam carried out by Abdul Karim  Telgi. It is considered one of the biggest scam in India. The Special Investigation Team of India had estimated the size of this scam at a mind-blowing sum of Rs 20000 crore in 2003, adjusting inflation the scam would be around Rs 65000 crores in today’s value of money.

What is stamp paper?

Traditional stamp paper or non-judicial stamp paper is used for sale deeds, transfer of immovable property, affidavits, agreements, deeds, wills, foreign bills, broker’s note,  insurance policy, share transfer certificate, etc. for executing the said documents in States across India. It is issued by the Government and usually carries a stamp paper value of Rs.10, Rs.20, Rs.50, Rs.100, Rs.500, or more.

Background of Abdul Telgi

Abdul Karim Telgi was a son of a class 4 railway officer. He was born and brought up in Khanapur which is located in Belgaon district of Karnataka. His father died when he was only 8 but he was the oldest among his siblings hence the responsibility of his family was now on his shoulders so he along with his 2 brothers started selling fruit one the platform of Khanapur railway station. Telgi completed his schooling from the local Sarvodaya Vidyalaya and pursued a B.Com degree from a college in Belagavi. He had much trouble finding a good job for himself at first so he moved to Mumbai to get better opportunities. He was a sales executive in a company named Fellix but soon he was expelled as he failed to perform up to the mark. Telgi always tried to find shortcut ways of making money and he had heard that it was very easy to make money in gulf countries hence he moved to Saudi Arabia but he failed and got back to Mumbai. In his pursuit of finding easy ways to make money.

His scamming career

He became a travel agent and started forging several documents and stamp papers to allow people to go to Saudi Arabia. He was noticed by the authorities in 1993 and put behind bars. This is where he meets Ratan Soni. Ratan Soni was a stock exchange dealer. Both of them joined hands to begin bigger ventures. Ratan suggested that the stamp paper department of government is one of the most ignored departments. He acquired a stamp vending license in 1994 just after getting released. He started bribing and making strong connections with government officers and politicians. Later he acquired the machinery required from Nashik Indian Security Press by bidding at an auction of machinery which was declared junk by the officials. With the help of his connections in Indian Security Press, he got the dyes, printing papers, etc. to enable him to make exactly the same stamp papers as the government. This made it difficult to determine the authenticity of the stamp papers. Alongside this, he was working on various other scams as well like money laundering but as his stamp paper scam grew he stopped these side ventures and focused on the stamp paper scam only.

In 1995 Ratan Soni and Telgi parted ways after which Telgi started counterfeiting at a much larger scale. He started counterfeiting all kinds of stamp paper in large volumes. He hired around 350 agents who sold his fake stamp papers at banks, stock brokerage, insurance companies, big corporates, and other firms.

Telgi in pursuit of more profits wanted to created an artificial scarcity of authentic stamp papers. With the help of his network with politicians and government officials he got the real stamp papers delivered and wrong addresses. Hence he made sure that he creates a shortage of authentic stamp papers in the market. He then flooded the market with his fake stamp papers and turned in huge sums of profits. His stamp paper had reached 18 states of India.