Bhubaneswar: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) on Tuesday arrested former chief manager of Bapuji Nagar branch, here of Punjab National Bank (PNB) and his two associates in connection with a bank fraud to the tune of Rs 3.68 crore in 2017.
The EOW had registered a case in this regard on the basis of a written complaint filed by Prasant Kumar Mohapatra against Birendra Kumar Pattanayak, former chief manager and Narendra Nayak, field officer of PNB and middleman Prakash Kumar Behera.
As per the complaint, the bank officials in criminal conspiracy with the partners of Lingaraj Enterprises and others had extended business loan to the tune of Rs 3.5 crore in favour of Lingaraj Enterprises against mortgage of residential duplexes of Mohapatra without his knowledge.
Mohapatra had actually deposited the property documents in the bank for availing a loan of Rs 10 lakh for himself in 2017. But the accused bank officials in conspiracy with Behera and others used the documents in pledging and sanctioning a loan of Rs 3.5 crore to Lingaraj Enterprises.
After the loan account of Lingaraj Enterprises turned to NPA in 2018 having outstanding loan amount to the tune of Rs 3.68 crore, the PNB served a notice on Mohapatra in 2018.
The EOW found during investigation that Rs I.5 crore from the sanctioned loan had been diverted to the account of Behera and Rs 10 lakh to that of Mohapatra to make him believe that the amount is his loan amount. Again, several debit transactions have been made from the account of Behera.
Several incriminating documents have been seized during house search of Behera and are under scrutiny.
Earlier, the accused persons had adopted similar modus operandi in sanctioning loan of Rs 2.5 crore to KP Solutions against mortgage of forged land documents and by impersonating the mortgagers.
Further investigation is on to identify and nab the other accused persons in both cases.
