Noida: Three dupe army officer’s widow of ₹1.39 crore, held

Three people, including a former bank relationship manager and his wife, were arrested on Monday for allegedly duping a 74-year-old woman – the wife of a late lieutenant colonel – of ₹1.39 crore on the pretext of investing her savings, police said.

The complainant, Amita Chaturvedi, widow of Lt Col (Retd) VK Chaturvedi, said the accused posed as her relationship manager and convinced her to invest her late husband’s savings over the past five years.

Chaturvedi said, “In January 2020, the suspect, Ashish Chandra, who was employed as a relationship manager at a private bank in Sector 18, approached me and informed me that he had been assigned as my relationship manager by senior bank officials.”

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“My husband died in 2018, and all the financial activities were handled by them. As I was unaware of all the details, he (Chandra) told me that the fixed deposit (FDs) of my husband was about to mature in 2020 and advised me to invest in mutual funds for double the return,” she said.

“On the pretext of investment, he approached me multiple times in the last five years and took cheques more than 22 times. During that period, he also returned ₹2.25 lakh as profit.”

Police said that in January 2025, when Chaturvedi contacted Chandra to withdraw a part of her savings, he started ignoring her calls and later switched off his mobile number.

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“When I approached the bank in Sector 18 on March 21, I was informed that Chandra had already resigned. When I inquired, I was shocked to find that he had siphoned off all my savings of ₹1.39 crore and transferred it to two bank accounts associated with his wife and an acquaintance,” she said.

Krishna Gopal Sharma, station house officer of Sector 113, said, “A case under sections 316(2) (criminal breach of trust), 318(4) (cheating), and 131 (criminal force) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita has been registered at Sector 113 police station, and we have arrested Ashish Chandra, 40, his wife Kritika, 38, and his brother Abhay, 33, all residents of Noida. During the investigation, we have also traced a transaction of ₹50 lakh so far that was done by them, and efforts are underway to trace additional transactions and recover the money. More arrests could be possible in the coming days.”