Bank fraud with a twist, lakhs swindled

Money gone by the time authorities are alerted


Subhro Maitra | TNN



Malda: Faking currency notes does not hit the headlines anymore. The in-thing now is forging internal bank advice from branches not interconnected under a system called the core business solutions (CBS). It’s a flourishing business in Malda, Murshidabad and South Dinajpur. Kayesh Ali from Englishbazar tried this trick with the State Bank of India’s Amrity branch and withdrew Rs 19.25 lakh.
Ali deposited a cheque issued from Central Bank Of India’s Unnao branch in Uttar Pradesh. SBI’s Amrity branch in Malda where Ali deposited the cheque made the payment after routine verification. Days after releasing the cash, SBI’s reconciliation cell in Mumbai found to their surprise that there was no such account holder in CBI’s Unnao branch and the transaction was a fraud.
But how then did the SBI make the payment to Ali without checking the account? Investigators detected the fraud after taking it up with the SBI bank authorities.
Under the existing system, for cheques issued from non-CBS branches of banks other than SBI, the bank manager on receiving the cheque sends a letter to his counterpart in the area seeking advice whether to make the payment. The SBI branch manager, in this case the Unnao branch in uttar Pradesh gets in touch with CBI Unnao and sends the advice. The communication is done through courier agencies.
The police during investigation spotted a racket hand in glove with the courier agency. They take out the original papers and forge them including signatures of bank managers. So what the bank manager of SBI’s Amrity branch received as advice from his counterpart in Uttar Pradesh was a forged one. It said that the account holder had sufficient money and the cheque could be honoured. The bank manager acted on the advice and made the Rs 19.25 lakh payment to Ali. A similar fraud was detected in Malda’s main branch. The cheque was again issued from CBI’s U n n a o branch. It was a highvalue cheque of Rs 53.50 lakh. Two similar cheques of Rs 15.50 lakh and Rs 19.58 lakh have been deposited at two branches of SBI, Malda. However, the SBI has kept the cheques on hold after they got a hint of the forgery from its regional office.
Police have rounded up two persons Samarendra Mandal and Nibaran Ghosh in this connection from Ratua and is also looking for Kayesh Ali who withdrew the money. Investigators fear that an inter-state racket have been operating in the districts for quite sometime before it caught the notice of the bank authorities. According to police, the racket includes among others persons from the courier agency.
“The miscreants managed the original letter of SBI’s Amriti branch to the SBI manager Unnao seeking clearance of the cheque from the courier agency in Malda. They then forged the letter of clearance and also the signature of SBI bank officials in Unnao and sent it to SBI’s Amriti branch by courier”, said Kalyan Mukherjee, additional superintendent of police in Malda.
Subrata Mandal, officer of the SBI Amrity branch, made the payment of Rs19.25 lakh based on the forged letter. Mandal has been suspended. SBI has showcaused Mandal asking him how he made payment based on the forged letter within a week.
Following his suspension, the SBI Officers’ Association on Thursday called an indefinite strike in all 37 SBI branches in Malda and South Dinajpur demanding unconditional withdrawal of the suspension order....published in TOI on 5.3.10