KOZHIKODE: The main accused in the Punjab National Bank (PNB) fraud case, M P Rijil, gave a statement to the crime branch that he diverted the money to settle his loan obligations. Rijil, who was a senior manager of PNB, was arrested by the district crime branch on Wednesday. Rijil was presented before the district court on Thursday.
Rijil told the crime branch that he took a huge amount as housing loan which was diverted for online trading and games, but things did not turn out as expected.
Crime branch assistant commissioner T A Anthony told reporters in Kozhikode on Thursday that Rijil decided to divert the money from the corporation’s account after he lost money in online games. An amount of `25 lakh was taken from the corporation’s account first.
Later he took money from the corporation’s account at various stages, which eventually became a big amount. At present, the investigation team does not believe there is any contradiction in Rijil’s statement. As all the transactions were done online, there are records for everything.
The assistant commissioner said that all details would be checked in the coming days. The investigating team has also hinted that more money might have been lost from different accounts maintained with the branch where Rijil worked. The crime branch said that Rijil needs to be interrogated again to get more clarity about the money and to know if anyone else was involved in the fraud.
In the multi-crore fraud that was unearthed at the Railway Station Link Road branch of PNB, Rijil allegedly swindled money from various accounts, including those of the Kozhikode Corporation. The corporation alone lost `15.24 crore from seven accounts. Of this, `10.81 crore was lost from two accounts linked to the Kudumbashree CDS, under the civic body. The corporation has 15 accounts with the PNB.
According to the police, Rijil transferred crores of rupees from various accounts to the accounts of his wife and father by misusing his login ID and password. “Later, the amount was transferred to his own account.