Economic frauds on rise in Maharashtra
   Date :21-Oct-2020

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By Dheeraj Fartode :
 
ECONOMIC offences are steadily increasing in Maharashtra. As against 14,854 economic offences in year 2018, the State recorded 15,854 cases with jump of 5.6 per cent. The National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) ranked Maharashtra third in the country for percentage share in economic offences after Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. According to NCRB, Maharashtra recorded 13,941 economic frauds in year 2017 which rose to 14,854 in year 2018 with jump of 6.54 per cent.
 
The frauds increased to 15,686 in year 2019. It means that the State recorded upsurge of whopping 12.51 per cent in last three years in spite of Economic Offences Wing (EoW) being established at the state level and every police units of Maharashtra.
 
As far as rate of economic frauds is concerned, Maharashtra ranked seventh in the country with 12.8 economic offences per lakh population after Rajasthan (34.7), Telangana (30.8), Assam (28.8), Haryana (22.5), Andhra Pradesh (16.8) and Punjab (14.7). Of these 15,686 economic offences, the State recorded 13,392 forgery, cheating and fraud cases, 2,218 cases of criminal breach of trust and 76 cases of counterfeiting. Mumbai city registered highest 5,556 economic offences with crime rate of 30.2 per lakh population, followed by Pune with 934 cases and 18.5 crime rate and Nagpur with 452 cases with 18.1 crime rate. A police official said that being most prosperous and industrialised State with financial capital Mumbai, Maharashtra is facing challenge of growing economic offences. The volume of transactions through the Internet is also increasing and the fraudsters are using the opportunity to make money, he added. 
 
Highest property loss in State HIGHEST amount of property loss in economic offences was recorded in Maharashtra as compared to other States of the country. Maharashtra was the only State in the country to have recorded six offences involving a sum of over Rs 100 crore. It also topped the chart in economic frauds involving sum of Rs 1 to 10 crore (273 cases); Rs 10 to 25 crore (39 cases); Rs 25 to 50 crore (19 cases); Rs 50 to Rs 100 crore (9 cases).