AURANGABAD: The special investigation team (SIT) of the Nanded police has nabbed 12 accused for their alleged role in electronically siphoning off Rs 14.4 crore from a Nanded-based cooperative bank in December 2020.
The arrested accused include four foreign nationals — two each from Uganda and Kenya — and eight Indians (five women and three men). One of the arrested women is the principal of an English-medium school in Yavatmal.
So far, the police have retrieved Rs 1.3 crore from bank accounts in different parts of the country. The probe has revealed that the accused had been running various rackets from secluded places in Goa and Dharwad (in Karnataka) as well as other places in north India.
In this particular case, the money was transferred from the Shankar Nagari Sahkari bank’s common pool account, which it shared with the IDBI bank (its service provider), between December 17, 2020, and January 2, 2021. The probe revealed that before the bank got to know of the cheating, the money had been transferred to 279 different bank accounts in Vapi (Gujarat), Noida, Haryana, Delhi, West Bengal, Karnataka, Tripura and multiple accounts in Mira-Bhayandar.
Considering the scale of the crime, an SIT, headed by sub-divisional police officer Vikrant Gaikwad, was formed. Gaikwad said the crime was committed in a very sophisticated manner by using loopholes in the system. “Even the cyber forensic team is finding it difficult to completely decode the modus operandi,” he said.
Nanded superintendent of police Pramodkumar Shewale, while refusing to divulge specific details, said, “Our SIT has managed to retrieve Rs 1.3 crore by getting some of the bank accounts frozen.”
So far the arrested accused have revealed that they had rented several bank accounts to receive the money. Soon after receiving the money, they used to withdraw their commission — ranging from 2 to 10% — before transferring the cash to other bank accounts as instructed by their handlers. The probe has revealed that bank accounts in Kolhapur, Mumbai and Yavatmal in Maharashtra had been taken on rent by the racketeers.