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Multi-crore bank fraud: Second accused lands in Mohali police net
While three members of the same family from Mullanpur lost around ₹1.5 crore, another victim lost ₹1 crore in the scam
A week after Mohali police arrested an assistant manager of Cooperative Bank in Sialba village, Mohali, for siphoning off around ₹5 crore from the bank accounts of multiple customers, another accused in the case has landed in police net.
He has been identified as Harjinder Singh Raju, 35, a resident of Mullanpur. So far, a total of 35 bank customers have already lodged complaints with police.
While three members of the same family from Mullanpur lost around ₹1.5 crore, another victim lost ₹1 crore in the scam.
On May 9, police had arrested assistant bank manager Jasvir Singh, 56, also of Mullanpur, following a complaint by the bank’s district manager Gurpreet Singh, deployed in Phase 2, Mohali.
Police probe has revealed that both accused were hand in glove for the past five years to steal money from customers’ bank accounts.
While Jasvir stole the money by doing fake signatures on fake vouchers, Raju invested the stolen money in properties. Police have also recovered a Skoda car from Raju and are now pursuing a thorough probe to identify the properties bought by the accused using the defrauded money.
The fraud had come to fore after the accused was transferred to the Gharuan branch and was replaced by branch manager Tejpal Singh.
On verification, Tejpal noticed that the available cash did not match the amount listed in documents. This led him to discover that the previous assistant manager made fake vouchers and by doing fake signatures, debited money from the accounts of customers.
Jasvir had joined the bank as a helper in 2013 and later was appointed as clerk, eventually ascending to the post of assistant branch manager.
Bank officer tried to return money
According to police officials familiar with the probe, a few bank customers had confronted Jasvir a few years ago after realising the fraud. Back then, he convinced them not to approach police and assured them of returning the money. “To return the money, Jasvir sold properties worth around ₹90 lakh and utilised provident fund of around ₹30 lakh. When he failed to return money to all bank customers, they approached the police and senior bank officials,” an investigator said.
This is the second such bank fraud in Mohali district in three months.
In February, police had arrested Gaurav Sharma, the manager of Axis Bank in Bansepur, Mullanpur, for stealing over ₹10 crore from customers’ accounts.
On his trail for over a week after complaints from defrauded customers poured in, Mohali police had nabbed the accused near the Nepal border in Uttarakhand.
