Bank staff embezzle Rs 66 lakh

Kirti Pande / TNN / Jul 28, 2007, 04:28 IST

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Two employees of Dr Panjabrao Deshmukh Urban Co-operative Bank were recently arrested on charges of embezzling Rs 66 lakh from the bank.

AMRAVATI: Two employees of Dr Panjabrao Deshmukh Urban Co-operative Bank were recently arrested on charges of embezzling Rs 66 lakh from the bank.
Sources said the accused, identified as Suresh Bhatkar (the head clerk of the bank) and Anant Ghuge (the junior clerk) of the bank's Shivaji Nagar branch, used an account that had been inoperative for some time to conduct the fraud.
The fraud came to light on June 30, after the bank authorities noticed transactions worth Rs 1.18 crore from the said account over the last seven months. The accused were arrested by the Gadge Nagar police on a complaint filed by
the bank manager Sanjay Patil. Subsequently, they were remanded to police custody.

During the course of investigations and interrogation of the accused, many shocking revelations came to light. It was revealed that the accused used the inoperative account of a goatherd, Shaikh Harun Shaikh Hausa from Yawali Shahid village, to make transactions. Sources said that Bhatkar and Ghuge allegedly siphoned off Rs 66 lakh and parked the money in Hausa's account (no. 2117).
What surprised the investigators is how a small farmer, who lives in a hut in a nondescript village 30 km from Amravati, could amass so much money. Hausa had opened the account so he could take a loan from the Mahatma Fule Magasvargiya Vikas Mandal, but he never operated the account after procuring the loan. This, however, came to the notice of Bhatkar and Ghuge. Bhatkar's brother-in-law Yogesh Yawalikar from Yawali Shahid was acquainted with Hausa and even knew his account details.

The duo operated the account in such a manner that no one got any information about it. Their modus operandi was so meticulous that it went unnoticed even by the bank's auditors. They used inoperative accounts as well as bogus cheques. They would credit any dishonoured cheque—which was marked as honoured in the books—into their account. In the process, their accounts somehow matched and raised no suspicions.
The fraud came into light when Sanjay Patil noticed some discrepancies in the bank's credit account. The bank then did an audit of accounts, at which time they noticed that transactions were performed from inoperative accounts.
The duo invested the embezzled amount in real estate, and apparently made money. Allegedly, they had even bought a Japanese flex machine, used for the preparation of flex boards, worth Rs 18 lakh. The machine was kept at a shop at Gulshan market and was seized by the police.Police say further enquiries arebeing conducted.
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