Bhubaneswar: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Crime Branch has arrested five persons, including a home guard, in connection Rs 3.50-crore bank fraud, official sources said Wednesday.
The accused were identified as Dhananjay Prusty of Cuttack’s Chandini Chowk, Nirapada Karmakar of West Bengal’s Hoogly, Benudhar Singh of Cuttack’s Mohammadia Bazar, Surendra Kumar Beura of Choudwar in Cuttack, Niranjan Satpathy and Rinarani Satpathy, both from Bhadrak’s Bhandaripokhari. Niranjan has been working as a home guard in Bhubaneswar UPD. They have been booked under Sections 419, 420, 467, 468, 471, and 120-B of IPC and were produced before the designated court under the OPID Act in Cuttack Wednesday. According to EOW sources, the case was registered on the basis of a complaint filed by Bhabani Shankar Mohanty – Regional Manager at SBI’s Regional Office in Cuttack. Dhananjay and Surendra formed a partnership firm – M/s Maa Ganga Enterprise – December 3, 2022.
In a bid to commit the crime, both the partners resigned from the firm and transferred the partnership to Jonaki Karmakar and Sarat Chandra Swain September 20, 2023, according to the EOW. “As per their plans, the new partners – Jonaki Karmakar and Sarat Chandra Swain – applied for credit facilities – Asset Backed Loan (ABL) of Rs 3.50 crore – from SBI’s Madhupatna branch by mortgaging forged documents of a piece of land under Saheed Nagar police limits belonging to another man named Sarat Chandra Swain,” the EOW sources said. For the forgery, they also prepared fake Aadhaar and PAN cards in the name of the impersonator. Those were quite different from the Aadhaar and PAN of the original land owner, Sarat Chandra Swain, they added.
The fraud came to the fore when the real land owner Sarat Chandra Swain sold the piece of land to Pradeep Kumar Beuria and Birendra Kumar Mohanty and the bank withheld the sale proceeds. “The arrested individuals orchestrated the fraud and, in conspiracy with other accused, successfully availed the loan from SBI in favour of Jonaki Karmakar. The loan amount was subsequently misappropriated by the accused and their associates,” the EOW said in a statement. During house searches, EOW officials seized Rs 51,100 in cash, sale deeds, Record of Rights documents, Aadhaar cards, PAN cards, debit cards, and bank passbooks from the possession and residences of the accused. “Additionally, fake Indian currency notes in denominations of RS 200, Rs 100, Rs 50 and Rs 10 amounting to Rs 5,290 were also recovered,” it said.
