BHUBANESWAR: Staging an elaborate hoax, six persons including a woman allegedly conned the State Bank of India (SBI) of a whopping Rs 16.71 crore by posing as officials of leading digital payments and financial services company PhonePe and obtaining high-value personal loans.
They allegedly set up a full-fledged fake office of PhonePe to deceive the bank officials during verification and submitted forged salary slips showing high payscale to get their loan applications approved.
The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Crime Branch on Wednesday arrested the main accused Anirban Patnaik and his wife Anupama Dash from Bhubaneswar, Tophan Rout and Satyaban Rout from Khandapada in Nayagarh district, Tukuna Mallick from Badamba in Cuttack and Feroz Khan from Kakatpur in Puri district.
The EOW had registered a case in this connection on August 12 after receiving a complaint from manager of SBI, Bhubaneswar (regional business office) Shiba Sundar Sahoo.
The complainant alleged that around 150 people including three of the accused fraudulently availed 161 Xpress credit personal loans from the bank by impersonating as employees of PhonePe. SBI offers Xpress credit loans up to Rs 30 lakh to individuals.
The matter came to light when they defaulted on repaying the loan amounts.
The accused reportedly availed 139, five, 11 and six such loans from the bank’s branches at Jaydev Vihar, Patia, Raghunathpur and Jharpada respectively between November, 2022 and October, 2023 by submitting fabricated employment records of PhonePe.
Investigation revealed that Anirban had taken an office on rent at DLF Cybercity in Patia area here to run his company Purvi Venture Pvt Ltd. The six accused turned the business space into a fake regional office of PhonePe in Bhubaneswar by fixing signboards of the digital payments company.
The fake office was shown to the bank officials during their visits for verification before sanctioning of the loans. They had also opened fake e-mail addresses which were used to show that the loan applicants were employees of PhonePe. They also generated fabricated salary slips and credited money in favour of the loanees for three to four months to give an impression that their bank accounts were official and genuine.
Sources said the EOW is verifying the exact number of individuals who availed the loans from SBI. “It is a massive scam and the masterminds including Anirban were taking 35 per cent of the amount credited to the loanees. The role of bank officials in the financial fraud is also under verification. More details will emerge after further investigation,” said an EOW official.
PhonePe issued a statement saying, "It has recently come to the knowledge of PhonePe Private Limited (“PhonePe”) that certain persons have been arrested by the Economics Offenses Wing of the Odisha Police for falsely representing themselves as employees of PhonePe to avail loans from State Bank of India under fraudulent pretense."
The statement went on to say, "At the outset, PhonePe unequivocally states that the arrested persons are in no way associated with PhonePe or its employees at any point of time. Such persons have never been employed by the company and that any documents in relation to PhonePe used by such persons are forged documents."
It added, "PhonePe is a law-abiding organization and has been cooperating and working closely with the Economic Offenses Wing of the Odisha Police and State Bank of India to aid their investigation. We shall continue to do so as and when called upon. Needless to state, PhonePe condemns the actions by such persons for their unauthorized and illegal use of PhonePe’s brand and goodwill."