Abdul Karim Telgi (1961-2017) was an Indian counterfeiter and the main perpetrator of the 2003 scam. The scam is based on forgery of stamp paper. He was imprisoned for 30 years. In 2023, a biographical financial thriller TV series Scam 2003: The Tergi Story was released on SonyLIV. In 2017, he died of cardiac arrest due to HIV infection.
Wiki/Biography
Abdul Karim Ladsaab Telgi was born on Saturday, July 29, 1961 in Khanapur, Belgaum, Karnataka. , aged 56 when he died. His zodiac sign is Leo. He attended Sarvodaya Vidyalaya English Medium School in Khannapur. In 1984, he pursued his bachelor’s degree in commerce from Gogot College of Commerce, Belgaum. When Abdul Karim was about seven or eight years old, his father died. The cause of his death is unclear, but he suffered from diabetes and was worried about his family’s financial well-being. After his death, Karim’s mother, who was in her twenties, received a small pension of sixty rupees a month for the family. But that’s not enough to take care of everyone. So Abdul Karim and his two brothers helped her collect fruits such as chicos, pears, cherries and mulberries from the nearby forest. They sell these fruits from a push cart at Khannapur railway station. In 1970, they were still packing fruits and selling them to people on the train stopped at Khannapur. He used to pay his school fees by selling fruits and vegetables on the train. After completing his studies, Abdul Karim Telji left Khanapur and went to Mumbai in search of work. He lived with his friend for about six to seven months and got a job as a sales executive in a company called M/s Filix India Ltd. His monthly salary is Rs. 3800. This company sells office furniture. He doesn’t work hard and fails to meet his sales goals every month. As a result, he was asked to resign from his job. After that, he got a job as a manager at a place called Kishan Guest House on Walton Road, Colaba. He worked there for two and a half years. Thereafter, he traveled to Saudi Arabia to earn money and stayed there for seven years.
appearance
Height (approximately): 5′ 5″
Hair Color: Black
Eye Color: Black
family
Parents and siblings
Abdul’s father, Radhesaab Telji (late), was a Class IV employee of the Indian Railways. His mother’s name was Shariefabee Ladsaab Telgi (deceased). His elder brother, Abdul Rahim Telgi, died in 2004, and his younger brother, Abdul Azeem Telgi. His brother Abdul Rahim completed his BSc, but Abdul Azeem stopped going to school before going to college.
wife and children
Abdul married Shahida Telgi on April 19, 1987, who was also convicted of fraud in 2003. She died in 2022 after a long illness with HIV. He fell in love with Shahida Begum, sister-in-law of Yusuf Ismail. Abdul Karim worked as Yusuf’s manager in Colaba, which is where they met.
shahida telji
They have a daughter, Sana Talikoti.
Relationships/Affairs
Telgi fell in love with Tarannum Khan, a bar dancer at Deepa Bar in Mumbai. Abdul reportedly spent over Rs. On December 31, 2001, she received Rs 90 lakh.
Taran Noom Khan (left)
Stamp Paper Scam 2003
After seven years in Saudi Arabia, he returned to India and started making fake passports to make money. He started a business sending laborers to Saudi Arabia. He started a company called “Arab Metro Travel” on Mumbai’s New Marine Line. He used to create fake documents to help workers get through airports even if their passports had issues like ECR (Immigration Check Required) stamps or other issues that made immigration officials suspicious. Labor exporters call this “push.” Initially, Telji started his scam in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Later, he expanded it to Delhi, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh. He was first arrested in 1991 in a forgery case. While in jail, Telji met another convict named Ratan Soni. They all decided to deceive people by making fake stamp papers. Tergi began manufacturing counterfeit stamp paper, a more sophisticated crime than making fake passports. He purchased a stamp printing press and repaired it to keep the business running smoothly. The whole thing was done very carefully. Telgi has his own business which he calls “Telgi AKL Government Licensed Stamp Supplier”. People began to use the abbreviated version of the first three parts of his name, AKL, in all cases and subsequent mentions. In the book Dangerous Minds written by S. Hussain Zaidi and Brajesh Singh, they said that in the CBI charge sheet, they called Abdul Karim Ladsaab Telgi as AKL Telgi. He hired 350 people as agents, who sold the fake stamps to big buyers such as banks, insurance companies and stockbroking firms. Many politicians, celebrities and police officers were involved in the scam as Tergi needed their approval to carry out his operations. The scam came to attention in 2001 when a truck laden with fake stamp papers was discovered in Pune and Karnataka. Local police began investigating the case, but when Tergi learned of the incident, he ran away. Later, when the police received information that Telji was going to visit the Ajmer Dargah, they arrested him there.
Abdul Karim Telgi arrested in Ajmer dargah
Many political leaders and anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare demanded his arrest. Anna Hazare even filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in the Bombay High Court in 2003. The court subsequently formed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) and arrested 54 people involved in the scam. The scam is worth Rs. 300 billion (equivalent to US$3.8 billion). During the drug test conducted by the SIT, he named some politicians and policemen but they were not arrested as there was not enough evidence against them.
Later, the CBI took over the case and filed a chargesheet in 2004, following which Telgi was jailed. When the CBI investigated the matter, they discovered 36 properties and 100 bank accounts registered in Telgi’s name, which contained large amounts of money. In 2006, Tergi was sentenced to 30 years in prison. In 2007, he was sentenced to an additional 13 years in prison by the court and sentenced to 13 years in prison. Rs 202 crore is not bad either. Even in prison, Tergi reportedly continued his business. The news came to attention when two prison guards were sent to jail for providing him with a mobile phone. The income tax department also attached attachment to his properties to pay the penalty. The tax department looked at his income for 1996-97 and found that his income was Rs. 45.4 Crores out of which Rs. The registered amount is Rs 22.9 crore. Telgi’s lawyers said the unaccounted funds were for his kerosene shipping business, but this claim was rejected because he could not provide any documentation to prove he was in the business. A 2003 Financial Times report stated that Telji was accused of at least 12 cases in Maharashtra alone from 1992 to 2002, as well as additional cases from other states. 15 cases. The most worrying part of the scandal is that it involves numerous police and government staff, including Assistant Police Investigator Nikhil Kothari. Surprisingly, Kothari’s assets are worth over Rs. 1 billion (equivalent to $13 million), even though he earns only Rs. 9,000 (USD 110) monthly salary. Many other police officers were also involved in the case. Pradeep Sawant, then deputy commissioner of police, Mumbai Special Branch, was initially removed from the post but was recalled after he was cleared of the case. Police officer SM Mushrif, famous for writing the book “Who Killed Kakare”, played an important role in handling the case. After his death in 2018, all the defendants in the case were released. The government decided to make this scam legal because if they called it illegal, people using stamps purchased from Telgi would panic and cause a lot of trouble for the government.
Abdul Karim Telgi was taken to prison by police
dispute
In 2006, the court charged Abdul Karim Telgi, his nephew Tabrez, and their associates Uday Sawant and Sajid (Sajid) was involved in the murder of Telgi driver Christopher Bhatti. All of them pleaded guilty in court. According to Uday Sawant, Bharti had helped Telgi start a fake stamp business in Tamil Nadu. Bhatti was accused of stealing Rs. 2.5 lakh from Telgi and then he disappeared. On August 7, 2001, Tergi’s associates caught Barty and beat him severely. They later dumped his body into Mahin Creek. After the police discovered the murder, they immediately reported the case and arrested Terji and other people involved.
net worth
His net worth in 2003 was Rs. 170 billion rupees.
die
Telgi had suffered from meningitis, diabetes and high blood pressure for more than 20 years before his death. While in prison, his health deteriorated and he suffered from a variety of illnesses. While he was in prison, he was declared HIV-positive. Abdul died on October 23, 2017, at Victoria Hospital in Bengaluru due to heart disease due to multi-organ failure.
Facts / Trivia
- In 2017, his wife wanted to donate Rs. The Rs 100-crore property belongs to the government. In the same year, his wife Shahida petitioned the Pune court to confiscate the properties owned by Abdul for the benefit of the country. She said in a statement,
My husband’s will was to the effect that property purchased with proceeds from the so-called fake stamp scam should be confiscated by the government and used for the benefit of the country. I learned that the police still confiscated some property, which was in the names of relatives. I have an obligation to fulfill my husband’s last wishes and bring this fact to the attention of the courts and prosecutors. Therefore, I filed this application. “Terji took false names and used them for the benefit of the state.”
- Karim’s brothers Abdul Rahim and Abdul Azim were also involved in their brother’s crimes. Their names appear in the police records of Bengaluru City Market Police Station and Pune Bund Garden Police Station. In 2004, when India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) began handling the cases, Abdul Rahim Telgi died before they could file charges in the Bangalore City Market case. Meanwhile, Abdul Azim began working as a laborer in the Gulf. Abdul Azeem was supported by Karim when he started working as a travel agent. He later returned to assist his brother in different businesses, including sending workers to the bay and processing counterfeit stamp paper. He was reportedly instrumental in recruiting people for Karim’s counterfeit stamp business. He was also active in politics and was a member of the Congress Party.
- A film inspired by the Telgi stamp scandal, Mud, was completed in 2008 but released a year later.
Poster for the movie Mud
- In 2022, his daughter Sana approached a Mumbai court seeking a legal notice to filmmaker Hansal Mehta to stop him from directing a film titled Scam 2003 – Abdul Khalifa. “The Case of Reem Lala Terjichi” is a web series inspired by Abdul’s life.
- In 2022, a book was published based on the 2003 scam called The Counterfeiter: Abdul Karim Telji and the Stamp Scam.
- In 2023, the Indian Hindi biographical financial thriller TV series Scam 2003: The Telgi Story was released on SonyLIV. The character of Abdul is played by actor Gagan Dev Riar.
- His nickname is Karim Lala.
Categories: Biography
Source: HIS Education