BHUBANESWAR: Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Crime Branch arrested two more persons for allegedly cheating State Bank of India’s (SBI) Phulbani branch to the tune of Rs 8 crore. The agency had registered a case in this regard in April after receiving a complaint from the regional manager of Phulbani’s SBI branch.
In the complaint, former deputy manager-cum-field officer, Ashutosh Acharya, was accused of illegally recommending and processing fake 59 SBI Xpress credit loans meant for salaried employees and 26 loans for pensioners. The loans were sanctioned in favour of people who were not salaried and non-pensioners. The agency had earlier arrested Acharya, while his two associates - Samaresh Ranjan Das and Hemanta Panda were nabbed on Saturday.
Das is a civil supplies inspector, currently under suspension, and Panda is the secretary of Smruti Multi-Purpose Cooperative Society Limited in capital’s Naharkanta area. “Out of the total fraud amount, Rs 1.89 crore was diverted to the accounts of Das and Rs 3 crore to that of Smruti Multi-Purpose,” said EOW IG, Jai Narayan Pankaj.
EOW officers found out that the loan amount was fraudulently transferred to Acharya’s family members, relatives and other associates. Between September, 2021 and 2022, Acharya in connivance with his associates fraudulently recommended and processed Xpress credit and pension loans amounting to over Rs 6.77 crore and Rs 99.82 lakh respectively.