NEW DELHI: Something surreptitious was on at the Karol Bagh post office for quite a while. Speed Post parcels were being booked for different addresses but dispatched to other places. In that process, the postal department incurred huge losses.
The discrepancy was found out when the booking and web lists showed different delivery destinations, police said. The Speed Post service is outsourced and bookings are generally handled by agents. A senior postal department official, said a source, approached Delhi Police to investigate the case and also named an agent in the FIR, whose alleged role in the anomalies came to light during internal probe.
"We found that the destination shown in the booking list was different from the actual delivery address as shown by the web delivery report. Parcels were shown booked for nearby cities and countries and appropriate charges levied were mentioned; but the web report showed delivery addresses in distant cities and countries," stated Binti Choudhury, a senior postal official, in the FIR.
A senior police officer explained the modus operandi of the cheats: "If a customer paid Rs 500 for parcel delivery to the US, the agent booked it, but altered the destination to Kathmandu or Singapore where the charge was as low as Rs 100. So, there was a direct loss of Rs 400 to the department per parcel."
Cops suspect the involvement of some postal officials. Loss of government revenue of about Rs 2,06,833 has been detected, said Choudhury.
A postal official approached cops to probe the parcel anomaly and also named an agent in the FIR.
The discrepancy was found out when the booking and web lists showed different delivery destinations, police said. The Speed Post service is outsourced and bookings are generally handled by agents. A senior postal department official, said a source, approached Delhi Police to investigate the case and also named an agent in the FIR, whose alleged role in the anomalies came to light during internal probe.
"We found that the destination shown in the booking list was different from the actual delivery address as shown by the web delivery report. Parcels were shown booked for nearby cities and countries and appropriate charges levied were mentioned; but the web report showed delivery addresses in distant cities and countries," stated Binti Choudhury, a senior postal official, in the FIR.
A senior police officer explained the modus operandi of the cheats: "If a customer paid Rs 500 for parcel delivery to the US, the agent booked it, but altered the destination to Kathmandu or Singapore where the charge was as low as Rs 100. So, there was a direct loss of Rs 400 to the department per parcel."
Cops suspect the involvement of some postal officials. Loss of government revenue of about Rs 2,06,833 has been detected, said Choudhury.
A postal official approached cops to probe the parcel anomaly and also named an agent in the FIR.
