In a major breakthrough on Tuesday, the Central Bureau of Investigation seized a machine used by Abdul Karim Telgi, the kingpin in the fake stamp papers scandal, in printing the fake documents. The agency also arrested three police officers in Bangalore for damaging evidence against Telgi, a CBI spokesman in New Delhi said.

Giving details, the spokesman said Oriental Printers in Mumbai was raided after a man named Uday Sawant, currently in CBI custody, was questioned. A Heidelberg machine, which Sawant used to generate proofs of the positives of revenue stamps and insurance stamps, was seized.

Later, the CBI raided another press, Prakash Mudranalaya, also in Mumbai. The place had been leased by Sunil Shelkar, a former employee of Sawant. Sawant used to take the positives of the fake revenue stamps and insurance stamps to Shelkar who would then process them and make plates. The exposure machine he used for this purpose has also been seized.

In a development in connection with two fake stamps cases which were taken up by the CBI from Karnataka on the orders of the Supreme Court, the agency today arrested Assistant Commissioner of Police (retired) T G Sangram Singh, Inspector Vali Basha, and Sub-Inspector Vazeer Ahmed Khan in Bangalore.

The CBI said the three police officers had been subverting the investigation of the cases while they were being handled by the City Market police station in Bangalore.

Apparently, Abdul Raheem Telgi, brother of Abdul Karim Telgi, was also present along with five other accused persons during the seizure of fake stamps which had led to the registration of one of the cases. But the ACP let Abdul Raheem Telgi off after receiving a bribe from his brother. Thereafter, the three officers became very close to the scamster and registered a case against some employees of Telgi who had tried to run a parallel fake stamps racket in Karnataka.

The CBI conducted searches at the residential premises of the three police officers and seized some incriminating documents.

In another fake stamps case in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh, an administrative officer of the National Insurance Company, arrested by the CBI recently, was remanded to four days in the agency's custody. He had earlier been sent to judicial custody.