Bank Manager Detained over NRI’s Complaint of Rs 24.30 Lakh Fraud

A senior manager of a bank in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, was detained for questioning by the police over allegations of fraud worth Rs 24.30 lakh from the account of a Non-Resident Indian. The amount, it was alleged, was transferred through RTGS from the account of Sandeep Arora without his permission on August 13 by the nationalized bank’s SME branch.

“We have detained the bank manager for questioning. The complainant had alleged that the manager is involved in the fraud,” Anil Kumar Shahi, the station house officer of Sector 20 police station, said, the Hindustan Times reported. A complaint was registered and an FIR has been lodged in the matter.

The Complaint

The publication quoted Sanjeet Arora, the account holder’s brother, as saying that Sandeep owns an automobile parts business in Dubai, and is on vacation in Singapore since August 9.

“On August 13, my brother received an e-mail from the assistant general manager, which read ‘the bank has received a cheque number 000007 dated 10-08-2017 of amount Rs24,30,000/- for RTGS in favour of NS Enterprises. As we discussed with you over the phone we have processed the transaction. Kindly acknowledge the same via mail too’,” HT quoted Sanjeet as saying. He added that Sandeep replied to the email, informing the bank authorities that he had not authorized any such transaction, and that the amount should not be debited from his account. The cheque leaf, he said, is still with his brother.

According to the complaint, the bank employees used fake PAN (permanent account number) and Aadhaar cards to change the registered phone number for the account.

Sanjeet added that his presence at the bank on August 14 stopped another such fraudulent transfer from taking place, when an amount of Rs 16.20 lakh was attempted to be transferred through another cheque.

“The manager should have complained to the police when he received the reply in an e-mail from my brother,” Sanjeet said. “Instead, he started consoling me and started assuring me that the amount would be returned to the account.”

Past  Cases

It’s not rarely that cases of bank frauds involving NRIs come to light. In 2015,  a public sector bank was ordered by the department of information technology to pay Rs 40 lakh as compensation to two NRIs — Chander and Romi Kalani — for unauthorised transfer of funds from their account through email hacking.

A few months before that, in November 2014, The Punjab Commission for Non-Resident Indians issued notice to HDFC Bank over allegations from a UK-based NRI that Rs.70 lakh was siphoned off from his account.