Bhubaneswar/Remuna: Amid allegations of a fraud involving Rs 1.32 lakh, the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the state Crime Branch Saturday raided a Bank of India branch at Remuna in Balasore district and later arrested Prabhat Das, 32, a temporary bank official, accused of siphoning money.
Das, a resident of Madhipur under Remuna police station limits in Balasore, a business correspondent with the BOI’s Remuna branch, was looking after the pension rolls of the retiree account holders at the branch.
Taking advantage of his post, he had allegedly defrauded the pension money for the last four years by furnishing forged life certificates of two account holders who are already dead.
The BoI branch manager Saroj Mohanty later lodged a complaint with EOW at Bhubaneswar about the fraud. Subsequently, EOW investigated the matter after registering a case (26/18).
The complainant said Parusram Giri, a resident of Mandarpur and Sabitri Behera, a resident of Naraharipur, had died in 2014.
However, Das forged the life certificates of the two deceased persons and deposited their pension money in their accounts every month. He had deposited around Rs 65 lakh in the account of Giri and Rs 67 lakh in Behera’s account till November 2018.
Later, he had fraudulently obtained the ATM cards of the deceased pensioners. He withdrew the funds (Rs 1.32 crore) from their accounts.
When the branch manager came to know of the fraud, he filed a complaint with EOW December 12. The sleuths raided the house of the accused Saturday morning and arrested him.
PNN