THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: MR Bijulal, accused in the treasury fraud case, who was arrested on Wednesday, has told investigators that he had indeed siphoned off Rs 2.74 crore from the treasury on multiple occasions. Police said he swindled the amount by illegally accessing the software using the credentials of the former Sub-Treasury Officer (STO). A police source told TNIE that Rs 74 lakh was first stolen from the treasury in March-April. The former STO, the accused told officers, had once provided him his credentials over phone during the Covid- 19 outbreak when he was not in office.
The STO rang up Bijulal to ask him to shut down the software. For this, he reportedly provided his credentials, which were then taken down by the accused. Using this password, the accused swindled Rs 74 lakh initially. “As per the statement given by the accused, the STO’s password was used to transfer the amount to his account. However, the former STO denied having given his password to Bijulal. We will now examine both the claims,” the police source said. The source said Bijulal told officers that the money was used to repay his car loan, help his sister pay advance for purchasing landed property, buy jewellery for his wife and get new clothes for himself, besides blowing up clash on online rummy. He reportedly lost Rs50 lakh playing the online card game.
The transaction for online rummy game was done through an SBI account he had opened while working in Wayanad treasury. The source added that out of Rs 74 lakh stolen, he has about Rs 9 lakh left in his account. Another Rs 2 crore had been stolen on July 27 by employing the same modus operandi, the source revealed. This amount, Bijulal reportedly told investigators, was credited to his account first and the transaction was cancelled soon. Bijulal had confessed that he exploited the chinks in the software – if a transaction was cancelled immediately, the debited amount is shown as having been credited back to the account and it will remain so for the next 10 minutes.
However, in reality the cash would have already gone to the intended account. He used the technical glitch to his advantage on multiple occasions. Officers said after Rs 2 crore was credited to his account, Bijulal forgot to erase the transaction details thereby exposing the fraud. “If he had erased the record, he would have gone on to repeat it,” said an officer privy to the investigation.