5 held for siphoning Rs 1.35 crore from NRI’s bank account

PTI, Oct 20, 2021, 10:08 AM IST

New Delhi: Five people, including a bank employee, have been arrested for allegedly siphoning Rs 1.35 crore from an NRI’s account, officials said Tuesday.

The accused have been identified as Sumit Pandey (24), a resident of Ghaziabad; Shailendra Pratap Singh (42), a resident of Shastri Nagar, Delhi; Neelam (32) of Sohna in Haryana; Jagdamba Prasad Pandey (22) of Mau (UP); and Adarsh Jaiswal (23) of Azamgarh (UP), they said.

A case was registered on November 13, 2020 at Rajinder Nagar police station on the complaint of Kanika Girdhar, who lives in Germany, they said.

She alleged that in November, she tried to login to her bank account, but the access was denied.

She approached the bank officials and got to know that her FDs had been liquidated and an amount of Rs 1.35 crore was fraudulently withdrawn from it, a senior police officer said.

The bank officials said a fresh cheque book and a new ATM card were issued against her account.

The bank also informed the complainant that the said cheque book and ATM card were received by a person who introduced himself as the complainant’s brother, the officer said.

The complainant, however, said that she never made any such request. Moreover, she has no sibling, police said.

During investigation, the accused was identified as Sumit Pandey, an employee of the bank. He was later apprehended.

It came to light that he accessed the details of the complainant’s account by taking advantage of his official position at the bank and got to know that Rs 1.35 crore was lying in the account, Deputy Commissioner of Police (central) Shweta Chauhan said.

He passed on the relevant information pertaining to the complainant’s bank account to Singh, the kingpin of the gang, who hatched a fool-proof conspiracy for fanning away the amount from the complainant’s account, the DCP said.

Singh arranged an office at Badkhal Chowk, Faridabad and started office for a fake company named Workforce India Pvt. Ltd. in the disguise of supply of labourers in big construction companies, police said.

He deputed two of his associates Jagdamba Prasad Pandey and Rahul there as managers.

They hired around 10 odd labourers for the company and made them open their bank accounts, police said.

He then got the registered mobile number of the complainant’s account re-issued in the name of one labourer and installed internet banking facility of the victim’s account on this SIM, police said.

The registered number was reissued to the alleged persons as it was not in use for three months and was in inactivated mode. He collected ATM cards and cheque books, they said. Thereafter, they started withdrawing amount from the account of Girdhar. After withdrawal, Rs 63 was left in the account. The offender deposited Rs 37 to take the total remaining amount of Rs 100, police added.