{
 "no": 65,
 "id": "case-65",
 "sk": 20030601,
 "year": 2003,
 "date": "Surfaced 2003",
 "cat": "Public money",
 "sev": "red",
 "title": "Telgi. Counterfeit stamp paper, and the police who were paid to look away",
 "stamp": "Kingpin convicted. Patrons never named.",
 "human": {
  "v": "Property deeds, insurance and court filings across several states executed on forged government paper",
  "est": false
 },
 "cost": {
  "v": "A counterfeiting operation run for years with official stationery and official protection",
  "est": true
 },
 "what": "An organised syndicate headed by Abdul Karim Telgi printed and sold counterfeit government stamp paper across several states through the 1990s, using machinery and access that could only have come from inside the system. A court-monitored Special Investigation Team eventually arrested dozens, including serving police officers.",
 "dodge": "An earlier state inquiry raised nothing; the case only moved after a public interest litigation forced a court-monitored SIT. Telgi was convicted in 2007 and sentenced to 30 years. Serving policemen were convicted of helping him. The politicians he claimed to have paid were never charged, and the question of who inside government supplied the machinery was never answered on the record.",
 "ministers": [
  {
   "n": "Maharashtra state government",
   "r": "Home department and police establishment during the racket"
  },
  {
   "n": "Maharashtra police",
   "r": "Officers convicted of abetting; senior patronage never established"
  }
 ],
 "pos": "Successive state governments pointed to the convictions of Telgi and of the police officers as proof that the system had worked, and rejected the claim of political protection as unproven.",
 "alleg": "Telgi's claim, made in custody, that he paid senior politicians is <em>an allegation that was never tested in court</em> and is recorded here as such.",
 "alt": "A court-monitored investigation from the first complaint rather than after a PIL, and a public accounting of how government printing machinery reached a private syndicate.",
 "sources": [
  {
   "label": "Business Standard: who was Telgi and what was the scam",
   "url": "https://www.business-standard.com/india-news/scam-2003-who-was-abdul-karim-telgi-and-what-was-the-stamp-paper-scam-123080800309_1.html",
   "tier": 2
  },
  {
   "label": "The Week: the Telgi stamp paper racket",
   "url": "https://www.theweek.in/news/entertainment/2023/08/30/true-story-abdul-karim-telgi-from-fruit-vendor-to-mastermind-of-multi-crore-stamp-paper-scam.html",
   "tier": 2
  }
 ],
 "caseUrl": "https://whoisresponsible.xyz/case/case-65/"
}