Indian Bank officials in the dock for swindling Rs 5.7 cr

NT Correspondent
Bengaluru:

Hanumanth Nagar police have booked the branch manager and several staff of a nationalised bank in Bengaluru on charges of allegedly misappropriating funds from a customer through fraudulent transactions.

According to police, the action was taken against the officials following a complaint filed by the Zonal Manager of the Indian Bank, DS Murthy.

The suspects were identified as Hari Shankar, the branch manager, Kausalya Jerai, the assistant branch manager; and Muniraju, a clerk at the bank.

As per the complaint, the alleged fraud took place between May 13 and May 19 and subsequently came to light during an internal probe into the release of Rs 5.7 crore in the name of a bank customer. According to sources, a woman customer had deposited Rs 1.3 crore in her name and recently availed Rs 75 lakh as a loan against her deposit.

The customer had submitted the deposit documents with the bank to avail of the loan. However, the suspect officials allegedly teamed up, tampered with the deposit documents and used them as security to release Rs 5.7 crore in multiple instalments as overdraft between May 13 and May 19.

An internal audit by the bank revealed that the suspects had diverted the funds to as many as 28 accounts linked to various banks in West Bengal and two accounts in Karnataka.

A case of cheating and criminal conspiracy has been filed against the three officials at the jurisdictional police station. Police said that the officials are currently being interrogated and further investigations into the case are being carried out.