New Delhi: After the massive success of ‘Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story’, which received rave reviews from critics and viewers alike, the makers have announced the second installment with Hansal Mehta returning to direct the series.
Tentatively titled ‘Scam 2003: The Curious Case of Abdul Karim Telgi’, the upcoming series will delve into the life of Abdul Karim Telgi, the mastermind of the 2003 Stamp Paper scam.
‘The Telgi Story’ will be directed by National Award winner Hansal Mehta, acclaimed for directing ‘Scam 1992’. It will also be streaming on SonyLIV.
Who was Abdul Karim Telgi?
- Abdul Karim Telgi was born in Karnataka’s Khanapur in 1961.
- Son of a Class 4 employee in the railways, Telgi and his two brothers started helping their mother pick fruits such as pears, cherries, and mulberries from forests and sell them to passengers on board trains that stopped at the Khanapur station.
- After finishing his schooling, Telgi joined the Gogate College of Commerce in Belgaum and graduated in Commerce. His first job was as a sales executive in M/s Fillix India Ltd in Maharashtra’s Mumbai. After losing this job, Telgi worked at Kishan Guest House in Colaba as manager.
- With big dreams in his eyes, Telgi decided to leave India. He got a job in Saudi Arabia in 1986. However, due to lethargy, Telgi lost his job and returned to Mumbai after a few years.
THE BEGINNING
- He started working as a travel agent in Mumbai and used to export manpower to Saudi Arabia. He also opened a company ‘Arabian Metro Travels’ at New Marine Lines. However, honesty was indeed not the best policy for Telgi, who soon began to indulge in illicit business practices, such as fake immigration clearance documents for labourers seeking to move to Gulf. The Mumbai Police had first arrested Abdul Karim Telgi, known as Karim Lala in his village, in 1991. He was booked under various sections of the Immigration Act concerning forgery and cheating.
- While in jail, Telgi met Ratan Soni, who was in wheeler-dealing at the stock exchange. Both of them joined hands to begin bigger ventures. Reports suggest that it was Soni who had told Telgi that the stamp-paper office was one of the most ignored government departments.
THE STAMP PAPER SCAM
- Telgi finally managed to acquire a stamp paper licence (Number 12500) in 1994 with the help of his political connections and got machinery that was declared as ‘junk’ by the Nashik Security Press. Charges and arrests in the subsequent years did not stop Telgi from becoming the kingpin of the multi-crore stamp paper scam.
- Much has been written about Telgi’s rags to riches story. However, his craze for the counterfeit was evident in his personal life too. Telgi was a regular at the Topaz bar in Mumbai’s Grant Road. The bar was known for hiring dancers who were lookalikes or duplicates of Bollywood actresses. Reports suggest that it is where Telgi met Madhuri (not her real name), who looked like Madhuri Dixit. He never did anything with her more than appreciating her curves. But he reportedly showered Rs 90 lakh on the dancer on New Year’s Eve on 31st December 2000. In the book Dangerous Minds, it is claimed that the dancer told a journalist that Karim Sahab had an obsession for Bollywood and “fantasized about sleeping with the top actresses of the time….when he failed to gain access to the real Bollywood stars, he settled for the clones who were on display at various bars. Over time, it seemed that Telgi had a fetish for the fakes – from actresses to stamp papers.”
THE ARREST AND DEATH
- Telgi was arrested in 2001 in Rajasthan’s Ajmer. Six years later, he was sentenced to 30 years of rigorous imprisonment in the fake stamp paper scam. It is estimated that the scam value was allegedly around Rs 20,000 crores.
- It later surfaced that the man, who used to make his ends meet by selling peanuts and fruits at a railway station, had become the owner of 36 properties and more than 120 bank accounts in Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai and other cities.
- Telgi was declared HIV positive in 2002.
- In July 2005, Telgi claimed that powerful people, who were scared of being exposed for their role in the multi-crore fake stamp paper case, got him injected with the AIDS virus some three years ago. He added that he was also denied treatment for his many ailments like diabetes and HIV.
- Telgi, the convicted counterfeiter, was serving his term in the Parappana Agrahara Central Jail in Karnataka’s Bengaluru after being sentenced to 30 years of rigorous imprisonment when he died in October 2017. He was 56.