The CBI has filed a charge sheet against 18 people, including an Indian Bank branch manager, in connection with the Rs 45.40-crore fixed deposit fraud of Chennai Port Trust, officials said on Wednesday.
A Sarmathi Raja, then branch manager of Koyambedu branch of Indian Bank, and 17 other accused have been named in the charge sheet for allegedly cheating Indian Bank by pre-closing term deposit accounts (fixed deposits) standing in the name of Chennai Port Trust, they said.
"It was alleged that the accused committed the offence of criminal conspiracy, impersonation, fabrication of false documents, submission of forged documents, criminal misappropriation, criminal breach of trust, fraudulent transactions, etc. and caused wrongful loss of Rs 45.40 crore (approximately) to the bank," CBI spokesperson RC Joshi said.
Chennai Port Trust regularly invested in term deposits for which it had open tenders, which was bagged by the Koyambedu branch of Indian Bank, officials said.
The CBI in its probe found that the accused allegedly exploited the situation of investment of surplus cash available with Chennai Port Trust in the form of term deposits/fixed deposits with the bank for earning interest through limited tender process and also the willingness of the bank to attract investment in the form of term deposits, Joshi said.
"In that process, a total of Rs 100.57 crore (approximately) was transferred from CPT in five investments against which 45 term deposits of different amounts were created. Out of the total amount invested, Rs 55.19 crore could be freezed after the detection of the fraud and the remaining Rs 45.40 crore were swindled by the accused," Joshi said.
Sources in the agency said the siphoned off amount was allegedly invested in properties and money lending business.
Once the deposits were created, the alleged mastermind went to the branch introducing himself as the Deputy Director (Finance) of Chennai Port Trust, where he opened a fake current account in the name of CPT at the branch on the basis of forged documents.
"After the receipt of investment from CPT on every occasion, the bank created term deposit receipts (Bond) against the said investment and the said bond was received by the accused from the bank directly. Instead of delivering the original bond to CPT, the accused made duplicate bonds and submitted the forged bonds to CPT," the CBI had said after registering the FIR in July 2020.
With original bonds in possession, the mastermind accused allegedly approached the bank and pre-closed deposits within days of their creation.
The amount was transferred to fake accounts of CPT created in the bank and further it was transferred to different accounts, they said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
Madhya Pradesh's CBI Move: Agency Needs Written Consent To Probe Cases Patna Court Sends NEET-UG Paper Leak Key Accused To 14-Day CBI Custody Engineer Stole NEET Question Paper From Exam Body's Trunk, Arrested By CBI Over 300 Indian Students Return Home As 105 Bangladeshis Die In Protests "Jindal Group Executive Showed Porn, Groped Me On Flight": Woman To NDTV Full Recovery From Global IT Outage Could Take Time: 10 Points India Hints At Roles Of Pakistan, China That Could Undermine Shanghai Bloc Deadly Viper On The Rise: Bangladesh Grapples With Snake Crisis SBI Recruitment 2024: Registration Begins For 1,040 SCO Track Latest News Live on NDTV.com and get news updates from India and around the world.