Samagra Shiksha fraud accused had 13 bank accounts, 68 complaints nationwide

Panaji: The probe into the alleged theft of Rs 4.6 crore from the Goa Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan (GSSA) bank account uncovered that the accused have 13 bank accounts used in 68 cyber complaints involving cyber frauds of Rs 1.5 crore registered across the country. Two FIRs are already registered in Bihar and Bengal.
The investigation revealed that the accused persons are part of an organised financial fraud racket, wherein current account holders are identified and their banking instruments (ATM cards and cheque books) are obtained for illegal financial transactions. The accused played a crucial role in coordinating and arranging these accounts for the co-accused, SP (crime branch) Rahul Gupta told TOI.
The role of an insider from the Bank of India is also being investigated. These accused seem to be connected to someone with access to confidential bank data, he said.
Goa police transferred the case from Porvorim police to the crime branch. Goa police arrested five persons in the case.
Goa police arrested Purnashish Sana from Kolkata in the case. Alamin Mondal and Bidyadhar Mallick were arrested from Delhi. Rabin Paul was arrested from Kolkata, who was released on bail. Another person identified as Sumanta Mandal was arrested, and he is on transit remand, the SP said.
During the course of the investigation, it was revealed that Sana introduced Paul to Alamin for providing his bank account number, and Alamin shared this entire detail/access of the bank account with Subhashish Sikdar, Gupta said.
The SP said that Rs 1.8 crore was reflected in the bank statement of Paul. Sikdar illegally withdrew a sum of Rs 1.8 crore from Paul by presenting forged cheques to different banks, which were processed as genuine. The withdrawn amount belonged to the savings bank account of the Goa Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan Society.