Fraudsters siphon off 27 crore from bank

Hyderabad: Fixed deposits amounting to Rs 27 crore belonging to the Hyderabad High Court and the Andhra Pradesh Warehousing Corporation were withdrawn fraudulently from State Bank of Hyderabad in Malkajgiri.

The scam surfaced, when one Shukla, a liquidator appointed by the High Court enquired about the deposits of Rs 9 crore with the bank manager of SBH, Mallikarjuna Nagar branch in Malkajgiri police station limits.

In October 2015, as much as Rs 9 crore of liquidated funds were deposited in the bank as fixed deposits. The money was deposited through a mediator, who was identified as a former bank employee. Basing on the complaint lodged by the liquidator of the High Court, a case has been registered under section 20, section 468, section 470 and section 120 B of IPC in Malkajgiri police station for investigation.

The police recently took the former bank employee, who acted as middleman during the deposit of funds, into their custody. During interrogation, the mediator revealed that he managed to meet the liquidators and convinced them to transfer the funds from a bank in Hyderabad to the SBH in Malkajgiri to receive more rate of interest.

After depositing the funds, the accused kept the original bonds of the deposits with him. Subsequently, using forged documents from the concerned government departments, he diverted the funds to 13 banks across the country including banks at Rajkot, Mumbai, Chennai and some in Gujarat.

Following the confession by the accused, the police also picked up some agents who were also part of the scam. Investigation also revealed that similar fraud has taken place in SBH bank in Ghatkesar, where Rs 18 crore belonging to Andhra Pradesh Warehousing Corporation were siphoned off by some fraudsters using forged documents.

Malkajgiri ACP M Ravichandan Reddy said the money was transferred to at least 13 accounts using forged documents. Some persons have been taken into custody for questioning and investigation in the matters is on, he said.