The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Wednesday conducted searches at more than a hundred places across India in connection with around 30 cases of bank fraud that amount to over Rs 3,700 crore.
These CBI searches were part of a special drive to book fraudsters based on complaints received from different nationalised banks in India. The complainant banks include Indian Overseas Bank, Union Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, Punjab National Bank, State Bank of India, IDBI, Canara Bank, Indian Bank and Central Bank of India.
The searches were conducted in Kanpur, Delhi, Ghaziabad, Mathura, Noida, Gurugram, Chennai, Thiruvarur, Vellore, Tiruppur, Bengaluru, Guntur, Hyderabad, Ballari, Vadodara, Kolkata, Surat, Mumbai, Bhopal, Tirupati, Visakhapatnam, Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Karnal, Jaipur and Sri Ganganagar.
During the searches, several incriminating documents and material as well as digital evidence were recovered, officials said.
“The CBI has been receiving a number of complaints from various banks alleging cheating, diversion of funds and submission of fake and forged documents by different defaulting firms while obtaining loans and credit facilities,” CBI spokesperson RC Joshi said.
He continued, “This results in the loans becoming non-performing assets and thus causes heavy loss to the public sector banks. After scrutiny, the cases have been registered by the CBI. Thorough investigation will be carried out in order to book the culprits, make them face the law and salvage public money.”