2 deputy bank managers among 8 held for Rs 1.77 crore fraud: Noida Police

NOIDA: Less than two weeks after the western UP wing of UP power department alleged a major scam to the tunes of Rs. 1.77 crore in payments deposit via cheques and demand drafts, Noida police has arrested three former and serving contractual employees of PVVNL, a deputy manager with a PNB bank branch, an employee of a private data service provider agency to the ICICI bank and three other accomplices for orchestrating the scam.
Property, money in banks and cash worth Rs. 78, 77, 540 has been seized from the accounts of the accused and their possession.
Explaining the scam, police said that the accused had been operating for the past one year and it was a former contractual employee of the PVVNL Sachin Kumar who is the kingpin of the scam.
According to the police, Sachin who was deployed at the Khoda substation of the PVVNL as a contractual worker was engaged in depositing of bills till 2010. He allegedly left his job in 2010 and instead got his friend Jai Subhash deployed in his place. The latter is still serving at the substation, police said.
“In 2019, the accused Sachin met Karan who has formerly worked in the repair section of the power department as a contractual employee. Sachin, Jai Subhash and Karan decided to siphon off the money from the demand drafts/cheques deposited by PVVNL customers to a fake account,” a police officer said.
DCP (Noida) Sankalp Sharma said the accused roped in Manish Kumar, who is employed with Reliable Data Services – a service provider to the ICICI bank in their gang and Manish helped them provide the DDs/cheques which were to be deposited in the bank account of the electricity urban distribution division of the PVVNL. Manish was
tasked with collecting the DD/cheques from the office of the electricity divisions to the ICICI bank.
Sachin was in touch with Anand Gautam, a deputy manager working with the Jokhabad, Sikandrabad branch of the Punjab National Bank (PNB) whom he approached for opening a fake bank account with similar initials as the bank account of the PVVNL (EEEUDD).
Dharmendra Sharma, station officer (SO) Sector 49 police station told TOI that Gautam refused to open the account in his own branch saying that the manager was strict and instead introduced him to Ankur Bhaskar, who is serving as the deputy manager in the Palrajhal area of Bulandshahr.
“The account was opened using a forged Aadhaar card prepared by one Brajesh Kumar who runs a computer shop and helps people prepare their documents. The account was opened on the name of a fake firm called Eshan Electrical Engineeering Under Drafting Design which had similar initials as the account of the PVVNL in ICICI bank’s Sector 50 branch,” Sharma said adding that the accused would pick out some DD/cheques to the tunes of lakhs of rupees and would deposit the same in the fake account opened in Bulandshahr.
“They would remove the stamps of the PVVNL from the original cheques/DDs and instead put the stamp of the fake account and deposit the same in the Sector 12 branch of the PNB bank. The DD/cheques would be encashed using the help of Ankur,” he added.
Fake DD/cheques of smaller amounts forged to complete number of cheques
To complete the number of cheques/DDs deposited in favour of the PVVNL bank, the accused Vishal and Yatendra Chaudhary would forge DDs of smaller value on the name of the original account of the EEUDD which the latter would deposit to the ICICI bank branch, police said.
The Sector 49 police on Tuesday arrested Sachin Kumar, Vishal Sharma, Manish Kumar, Ankur Bhaskar, Karan Singh, Jai Subhash, Yatendra Chaudhary and Brajesh Kumar who have been involved in the scam while Anand Gautam , deputy manager with the PNB bank’s Sector 11 branch remains absconding.
Accused bought property, deposited money in personal accounts
Along with a total of Rs. 12, 05, 000 of cash which has been recovered from Sachin, Ankur and Sachin, original DDs of PVVNL customers to the tunes of Rs 10, 22, 540 have been recovered from Manish and others while a total of Rs 15 lakh has been seized in the bank accounts of Manish and Ankur.
The DCP told TOI that Ankur has deposited Rs 11 lakh in his wife’s account while Manish too had deposited Rs 1 lakh in his account.
While Manish bought land in Bihar’s Nalanda, Sachin bought land in Aligarh district.
PVVNL and ICICI had communication but any direct role of officials still under investigation
DCP Sharma said that while the ICICI bank and the PVVNL have exchanged communication on the shortfall of the money in the PVVNL account, any direct role of the officials is yet to come to fore.
“It seems there was communication on paper but no coordination,” he said.