BHUBANESWAR: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Crime Branch on Wednesday arrested two State Bank of India (SBI) officials for allegedly sanctioning loans amounting to Rs 5.21 crore by mortgaging spurious and fake gold ornaments.
The accused were identified as Chandan Kumar Mahala and Debendra Niranjan Sahu. While Mahala is currently posted as chief manager at SBI’s administrative office in Bhubaneswar, Sahu is a field officer in Ankushpur.
The fraud had taken place during 2024-25 in the Balichandrapur branch of SBI where Mahala and Sahu were posted as chief manager and senior associate-cum-cash in-charge respectively.
The matter came to light after SBI’s regional manager, Jagatsinghpur, Peeyus Ranjan Swain lodged a complaint with the EOW in this connection in February this year. The Balichandrapur branch of the bank comes under Swain’s jurisdiction.
Investigation revealed the two accused had not verified the mortgaged gold ornaments with the help of gold valuers empanelled by the bank to test their purity. Mahala had fraudulently sanctioned 87 gold loans amounting to Rs 4.38 crore while Sahu processed 16 gold loans amounting to Rs 73.85 lakh. The gross weight of gold as shown pledged for disbursal of loans was 10,646.58 gm, which was found to be spurious and fake.
EOW officials said out of at least 103 loans, 63 were sanctioned without any gold ornaments. Loan documents including goldsmith valuation reports were missing and the borrowers’ signatures were found to have been forged, they added.
Earlier in April, the agency had arrested the gold apprai ser of SBI’s Balichandrapur branch Prashanta Kumar Mallick in connection with the case.