2 bank officials held for Rs 2.9 cr loan fraud

Hyderabad: Pahadesharif police on Tuesday arrested five persons, including the manager and assistant manager of the Union Bank of India (UBI) for their involvement in Rs 2.9 crore

loan fraud

by mortgaging imitation gold.

Based on a complaint lodged by UBI Thukkuguda manager R Yashwanth Reddy on September 23, police registered a case of cheating and criminal conspiracy. Police arrested T Sainath (25) appraiser in UBI, A Sunil Kumar (31), ormer manager of UBI Thukkuguda branch, R Pradeep Kumar (36) asst manager UBI, M Santosh Kumar (45) gold smith from Karmanghat and T Shivanath (27) from Thukkuguda for their involvement in the fraud.

On June 22, 2016, Sainath was appointed by the bank as the gold loan appraiser to confirm purity and weight of the ornaments. Recently, the bank officials got information about Sainath’s involvement in illegal activities like certifying spurious gold as pure gold.

The bank then engaged an empanelled appraiser of Nadergul branch, A Madhu Sudhan, for testing of all the gold ornaments pledged. After verification it was found that ornaments pledged for 96 gold loan accounts of the 429 loans issued from the branch are fake. The total outstanding liability against them is Rs 2.91 crore.

According to police, the accused obtained 99 gold loans in the name of 33 customers for Rs 2.91 crore by pledging imitation gold. “Sainath was also the gold appraiser of Telangana Grameena Bank’s Mankhal branch and there too he had pledged spurious gold ornaments to obtain 25 gold loans in the name of seven persons for Rs 54.6 lakh and defaulted on them. Based on a complaint of Telangana Grameena Bank officials, a separate case was registered against Sainath recently,” said Pahadesharif inspector S Vishnu Vardhan Reddy. Police seized a car, a bike, two cell phones and copies of Sainath’s house ownership documents.