After bank and ATM robberies, here’s a new sort of crime — a fake bank. It was a near-perfect scam, with literature and a website in place, offers of loan made and over 2,000 zero balance accounts opened.

The branch, claiming affiliation to the Punjab National Bank (PNB), ran for weeks in north Bihar’s Vaishali district, before it was finally shut down after a police raid on Saturday. Four persons – one of them a woman – “working” there were arrested and computers and incriminating documents seized.

“We received a complaint from PNB officials that the fake branch had been running in Lalganj since early December,” said Vaishali superintendent of police Upendra Kumar Sinha.

A Delhi-based firm, Icon Vidha and Madhu Infosys System, had hired a flat in December for the premises. The ‘corporate office’ of the establishment was stated to be in Delhi. “A fake site www.ivminfosys.com, with its server in the US, was also created to dupe the investors,” Sinha said.