VIZIANAGARAM: In a major breakthrough, the Vizianagaram police Friday arrested the second accused, Shyamala Kumar Jana Friday in a multi-crore bank fraud case.
The State Bank of India’s Ramabhadrapuram branch manager V Balakrishna swindled Rs 1.87 crore from customer accounts in May last year. The manager was trapped by cyber criminals Shyamala and Ramesh Chandra Katari, who then lured him to pay the amount for processing a lottery worth Rs 2.8 crore.
Balakrishna received an SMS on his cell phone stating that he had won Rs 2.8 crore through a lottery.
Lured by the huge amount, the BM had hatched a plan to withdraw Rs 1.87 crore from the bank accounts of the customers towards the lottery processing expenditure and other taxes.
He withdrew the amount from the bank accounts of the customers through fraudulent means and deposited the same in the accounts of Shyamala and Ramesh Chandra but ended up behind the bars even before he could realise that he was duped by the cyber criminals.
The Salur police who took up investigation in the sensational case, have arrested Balakrishna and started a manhunt for the other accused.
The police investigation revealed that Balakrishna sent most of the stolen amount in deposits of `10 lakh and Rs 5 lakh in phases. The police recovered about Rs 50 lakh of the Rs 1.87 crore. Efforts are on to nab the remaining accused and recover all the money.