BHUBANESWAR: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Crime Branch on Tuesday arrested three women officials of the State Bank of India (SBI) for their alleged involvement in loan fraud amounting to a whopping `13.92 crore.
The accused were identified as Baishakhi Saha, Charubala Dandasena and Sarita Paikaray. Saha was currently working as assistant manager (credit and NPA) at regional business office-II in Bhubaneswar.
EOW registered a case on May 5 after receiving complaint in this regard from the SBI regional manager, Bhubaneswar. Investigation revealed the trio had allegedly entered into a criminal conspiracy with other bank officials and middlemen, and fraudulently sanctioned 282 Xpress Credit loans from May, 2022 to November, 2023.
Out of the total loans, 150 were sanctioned from SBI’s Rail Vihar branch, 115 from the Fortune Tower branch, eight from Patia branch and nine from the Damana branch, by accepting fake/fabricated employment records like salary certificates, bank statements and KYC documents.
In 2022-23, Saha was posted as service manager of SBI’s Rail Vihar branch. Meanwhile, Paikaray worked as branch manager with SBI’s Damana Square branch and Dandasena posted as service manager in the same branch.
However during that time, Saha, in conspiracy with the branch manager, middlemen and others accepted fake and forged loan documents and processed 143 Xpress Credit loans to the tune of `6.22 crore. Meanwhile, Paikaray and Dandasena along with other middlemen fraudulently processed nine Xpress Credit loans amounting to `30.17 lakh. Currently, the duo is under suspension.
“The three officials had sanctioned loans in favour of the applicants who faked as employees of various organisations like Tata Steel Limited, TPCODL, Vedanta Limited, Dhamra Port, Aarti Steel Limited and others. After availing the loans through fraudulent means, the loanees stopped paying the installments and the loan accounts became NPA, leaving outstanding balance of `6.88 crore,” EOW officials said.
They said more arrests are likely to be made in this connection as loans were fraudulently sanctioned from SBI’s Fortune Tower and Patia branches too. “Investigation is continuing and further action will be taken accordingly,” they added.
Earlier, the agency had arrested a middleman in connection with the case.