PANAJI
Senior officials of the Crime Branch informed that the third accused, the then head cashier of the bank has yet to be placed under arrest as he is presently undergoing medical treatment after meeting with an accident recently. In an exclusive report on March 5, The Goan had first brought to light that the major fraud has been detected at Bank of Baroda in Anjuna, where more than Rs 2 crore was allegedly embezzled from individual account holders in
the bank. Former bank manager and a female colleague involved in the fraud, where
large amount of funds from individual account holders have been illegally transferred
to private accounts, were suspended by the bank and an internal probe was instituted.
The bank had informed the Anjuna Police after a considerable delay. However, no formal
complaint was lodged. The fraud was detected in February after the Anjuna Comunidade
wrote to the bank that an amount of Rs 23 lakh was illegally transferred in three installments from its account in December last year. “An amount of Rs 9.50 lakh was transferred without authorization on December 11 and Rs 7 lakh and Rs 6.50 lakh on December 15last year to another account,” said Edward Nunes, in a letter to the bank.
A highest amount of Rs 73 lakh was transferred from a single account, a source disclosed. Speaking to The Goan, the new manager of Bank of Baroda, Mahableshwar Vadkar, had stated, “Under no circumstances will our clients/ account holders suffer. We
will pay each and every penny of our patrons who have been defrauded.” Sources have now informed that the three accused, over a period of six months, rotated the money from certain Non Resident Indian customers of the bank to accounts which were opened in a forged and fraudulent manner. The cash was then withdrawn systematically from these forged accounts. Seven customers, mostly NRIs, have been allegedly duped by the three accused.
