In news which would come as a shock to banks and as a warning to customers, a bank manager combined with fraudsters to dupe the bank of crores of rupees. Cases of fraudsters making duplicates of one’s fixed deposit receipt and take loans in their name are not very common. However, even less common is the involvement of a bank employee in such a case.

This new method was brought to light by the bank fraud wing of the Central Crime Branch when they were investigating a cheating case at ING Vysya Bank’s Valasarawalkam branch recently. The bank branch had reported that seven fraudulent loans, amounting to Rs 5.63 crore, were taken by duplicating FD receipts of non-resident Indians. However, none of the depositors was aware of the involvement of the bank manager and that they have been duped and loans had been taken in their name.

Paneer Selvam, assistant commissioner, bank fraud wing of CCB, said, "The fraud came to light during the bank audit and bank manager Roop Chand filed a complaint with us. On investigation, we found that C Satish, another manager in the same branch helped M Suresh Kumar (38), a private company owner, and T Arivarasu (42), a dentist, to avail seven loans using the fixed deposit receipts of NRIs. We arrested all the three."

Saying that it was the first time the agency had came across this method, he added, "So far we have come across frauds where forged property documents were used as mortgage. When the banks insisted on registering the mortgage to prevent the customer from availing another loan using the same mortgage documents, the fraudsters were forced to change their modus operandi."

According to the officials investigating this case, the bank manager received a good percentage of the loan for his help. "When someone makes a fixed deposit, the bank is supposed to issue only one deposit receipt. However, Satish took two receipts, gave one to the original depositor and the other to the fraudsters. Both Suresh Kumar and Arivarasu used these receipts to avail the loans," the official said.

The original depositors came to know about this only when bank sent them notices for supposed non-repayment of loans, and they approached the banks. "In this case, the bank authorities realised that the fraud was committed with the connivance of the bank’s own official. So they avoided the embarrassment of contacting the depositors seeking explanation for non-repayment of loans," another official said.