Convicted Counterfeiter Abdul Karim Telgi Dies in Bengaluru after Serious Health Issues

Bengaluru: Convicted counterfeiter Abdul Karim Telgi (56) has died at Victoria hospital in Bengaluru on Thursday following serious health issues and multi organ failure. He was admitted to the hospital a few days ago after he started suffering from brain fever, HIV and other serious health issues.

Telgi was being treated in ICU initially and later shifted to ventilator in an attempt to save his life. Decline in pulse rate, weak brain activity finally caused for his death, sources said.

Telgi was serving his jail sentence for the last 13 years at Parappana Agrahara Central prison in Bengaluru after he convicted in counterfeit stamp paper scam.

Abdul Karim Telgi was born at Telgi village in Vijayapura district of Karnataka. After the completion of his B.Com degree he moved to the Middle East and later returned to Mumbai to start a business. After a few years in Mumbai, with the support of underground criminals, he begun printing counterfeit stamp papers and managed to earn crores of illegal income through it. After collecting income worth in crores, he started an import, export company, Metro Corporation in Mumbai. 

Karnataka police arrested Abdul Karim Telagi in Ajmer in November 2001 in connection with multi-crore counterfeit stamp paper scam.  He had took the service more than 350 persons as agents who sold the counterfeits to bulk purchasers, including banks, insurance companies, and other financial companies.

The size of the scam was more than Rs 30,000 crores and he reportedly sold counterfeit stamp papers worth more than Rs 20, 000 crore. However, investigation teams managed to seize fake stamp papers worth only more than Rs 3000 crore.

After an investigation into the case, Central Bureau of Investigation found the involvement of influential politicians, top government officers of various states. However, information on such influential politicians hasn’t yet released by the concerned authorities.