Barbil: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW), with the help of Keonjhar district police and Barrackpore Commissionerate Police of West Bengal, arrested one Subas Ghising Giri in connection with a case of fraud March 24.
The case pertains to a complaint filed by the Executive Officer, Barbil Municipality who alleged fraudulent and unauthorised transfer of Rs 2.45 crore from the ULB’s official account maintained with Bank of Baroda, Barbil by forging the cheques and the signature of the complainant.
“Giri was nabbed from Barangar in Barrackpur and was booked under Sections 420, 467, 468, 471 and 120-B of the IPC. He was produced before the ACJM, Barrackpore Court, 24 Praganas, Kolkata March 25 and brought to Odisha on the strength of transit remand,” the EOW stated.
Later he was produced before the Court of JMFC, Barbil. Another accused Saiyed Shahbaaz Naqvi (a native of Raipur, Chhattisgarh) has also been arrested in this case and produced in the Barbil court Sunday.
Investigation of the case revealed that the official account of Barbil Municipality is maintained with Bank of Baroda, Barbil and the authorised signatory of the account is the Executive Officer of Barbil Municipality.
Abhisek Panda is presently working as the Executive Officer and for any debit transaction from the accounts, his signature is necessarily required.
However, the Giri and Naqvi managed to transfer/withdraw Rs 2,45,60,800 from the ULB’s account March 16 and 21 by forging the cheques and the signature of the EO, Panda.
“The duo was running a mule account. They had already withdrawn part of embezzled money but were nabbed before withdrawing the remaining amount. They used to get 15% of the amount for operating the mule account. The mastermind of this racket will be nabbed soon. Total Rs 1.15 crore has been recovered from them and the account was frozen,” the EOW stated.
PNN