A gang of thieves was caught when they attempted to deposit their ill-begotten gains in a private bank at Nelamangala on Thursday evening. Alert bank officials flagged off a suspicious deposit and helped the police bust a banking scam to the tune of ₹3.9 crore.
Pareekshith Naidu, a 28-year-old automobile businessman from Harihara, approached the bank staff on Thursday evening with a request to deposit ₹1.9 crore cash into his account in the Harihara branch of the bank. The youth was accompanied by Rangaswamy, 40, a mechanic, and Guruprasad, 25, who runs a hardware store in Harihara.
The bank manager was suspicious of the huge amount of cash and tipped off the Nelamangala police.
When the police arrived, Naidu and his friends started to panic. Unable to explain the source of the money, they spilled the beans to the police. They claimed to have taken ₹3.9 crore from the account of Dhammanagi Vision Foundation using a forged bank cheque on Wednesday. The gang had also hacked the official mobile number of the Foundation.
The cheque was deposited in the Ramamurthy Nagar branch in Bengaluru. They later transferred the money to five different accounts.
When officials of the bank at Ramamurthy Nagar called the Foundation to check on the withdrawal of the huge sum, the person who answered the call cleared the transaction.
The gang then withdrew ₹2 crore and bought a new car. Later, they went to the Nelamangala branch of the bank on Thursday to deposit ₹1.9 crore.
The police have seized the cash and the car.
“We have arrested the three accused. We need to probe how they pulled it off,” said a senior police officer.
Investigators are also probing whether an employee of the Foundation or the bank was involved in the scam.