Noida authority duped:Fraud mastermind escaped as bank was late in alerting cops, finds probe

The matter came to the attention of bank officials on Tuesday only when he tried to transfer ₹9 crore again from the same account, said authority officials, who filed an FIR at the Sector 58 police station on Tuesday night

Two days after con men fraudulently transferred ₹3.9 crore out of Noida authority’s bank account using fake documents, police on Thursday said they have arrested the man who posed as the authorised accounts officer and reached the bank to transfer the money. Senior officers, however, said the mastermind of the crime managed to escape as the bank lost crucial time in alerting the Gautam Budh Nagar police as soon as he reached the bank.

Police identified the arrested man as Abdul Khadar, 40, who hails from Puducherry, near Tamil Nadu. (Representative Image)

Police identified the arrested man as Abdul Khadar, 40, who hails from Puducherry, near Tamil Nadu. They said he allegedly used a fake ID and other documents to pretend that he was authorised by the authority to handle its ₹200 crore funds at the Bank of India’s Sector 62 branch.

The matter came to the attention of bank officials on Tuesday only when he tried to transfer ₹9 crore again from the same account, said authority officials, who filed an FIR at the Sector 58 police station on Tuesday night.

Explaining the sequence of events, police said Khadar reached the branch in Sector 62 at 11am on Tuesday with an intention to transfer ₹9 crore after he had already transferred ₹3.9 crore on June 26, bank officials said. He was accompanied by three to four others, who were waiting in a car outside. But when Khadar realised that the bank was on to him, he alerted them on phone and they immediately fled the spot, the bank staff said.

“Had the police been alerted immediately by the bank officials on realising the fraud, Khadar’s associates would have been caught from outside the bank. But inside, the Bank of India staff and the Noida authority officials were both arguing over the errors and trading blame. They agreed to file an FIR only by evening the same day. This gave the others time to escape,” said a senior police officer, who asked not to be named.

The Bank of India chief manager Anil Sharma said, “He approached us at 11am to transfer ₹9 crore and we got suspicious. So we informed the Noida authority. In the meantime Khadar, may have called the persons waiting for him outside our branch.”

The Noida authority had authorised three persons -- chief finance controller Swatantra Kumar, finance officer Manoj Kumar Singh and account officer Sanjiv Dutt -- to manage the account that was opened in Bank of India on June 21 to invest ₹200 crore in fixed deposit.

Singh and Dutt had the power to take a decision only with regard to an amount of up to ₹1 crore; any transaction above ₹1 crore needed the chief finance controller’s approval. A letter to this effect was also sent to the bank. “But Khadar did not let this letter reach the bank. He got hold of the official document allegedly with the help of certain bank officials and Noida authority staff. He then made a fake letter stating he is the accounts officer authorised to operate the account,” said chief finance controller Kumar.

Police said they are still investigating as to how he got hold of the document, who in the bank and the authority helped him.

The authority said as per rules, their official accounts cannot be operated by a single person and it is mandatory to have joint operators. But the Bank of India has a different opinion about it.

“We have several company accounts in which they authorise a single person to execute all transactions. So we presumed that the Noida authority too had appointed a single person, Abdul Khadar,” said chief manager Sharma.

The authority and the police suspect that a gang had perpetrated the fraud because Khadar alone cannot make this happen. There were at least four to five persons who were staying in a hotel in Sector 24 for the past several days.

Sources said Khadar was hired for a commission of 1% of the total defrauded amount. Police have secured video footage from the hotel, bank and also from Khadar’s phone.

“Our teams have gone to Gujarat and Lucknow to arrest the others involved. We have got adequate leads in this case and more arrests are likely soon. Once we arrest everyone involved, we will be able to connect the dots. We do not want to comment on other aspects of the case until we complete our probe,” said Shakti Avasthy, additional deputy commissioner of police, Noida.