Rs 10.24 cr gone from PNB accounts’: How office assistant perpetrated the fraud

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Tuesday arrested two people, including an office assistant working at the Punjab National Bank’s (PNB) Greater Noida branch in Sector PI-1 after more than two dozen customers alleged that crores of rupees had gone missing from their accounts. The arrests come after the bank had set up an inquiry commitee to probe the Rs 10.24-crore fraud case, which found that the accused employee, an office assistant identified as Deepanshi, allegedly carried out the transactions over three years using IDs of other staff members.  She had also allegedly added other accused as joint holders for fixed deposit accounts and disabled mobile alerts for customers for perpetrating the fraud.

The other accused has been identified as Ashutosh Kumar Pathak, who has been linked to the alleged money trail. The central agency has obtained the transit remand for Pathak from the Special Court of CBI Cases, Pune, Maharashtra, while the investigation is continuing, an official said.

The CBI had registered the case on October 29 based on the complaint by the bank following the completion of internal inquiry, alleging that funds from various accounts had been siphoned off by the “accused office assistant in conspiracy with others by carrying out unauthorised debit transactions”.

‘Office assistant used staff IDs’

In its complaint, the bank stated that after a review of system logs, user activity records and also transactions, it was revealed, prima facie, that “multiple unauthorised transactions had been carried out in customer accounts over a substantial period of time.”

This was done allegedly by misusing user lDs belonging to different officials of the branch by Deepanshi. The funds from the accounts were allegedly transferred to saving accounts of customers to that of Pathak and other accused.

To ensure that customers don’t get the mobile transaction alerts, the complaint states, she had disabled the feature “associated with certain customer accounts before the transactions (under lens) were carried out, thereby delaying the detection of unauthorised debits by the affected customers.”

For the fixed deposit accounts maintained with the branch, it alleged that Pathak and other accused were added as joint holders, and that actions have allegedly appeared to have been carried out over a period of approximately three years.

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The FIR is registered under sections of criminal conspiracy, criminal breach of trust cheating, falsification of accounts and criminal misconduct.

How the scam unfolded

The complaint filed by Ajay Kumar Pandey,  Chief Manager, Circle Office, Noida, mentions that a customer named Sangita having her savings account in the bank had approached the bank along with her husband and daughter in order to update her passbook, where she allegedly found three transactions dated September 16  to have been carried out from her account without her knowledge, and had asked to meet the branch head.

“The branch head was not available. However, the accused staff, Ms. Deepanshi, immediately met them and convinced them with the genuineness of the transaction. That the above incident involving complaint of customer’s husband regarding serious irregularities in the account of Ms. Sangita, were brought to the notice of the Branch Head, and she questioned Ms Deepanshi about the incident, to which Ms. Deepanshi informed that Ms. Sangita had a word with her husband over the phone and informed that she invested in property and transferred the disputed transaction amount to the account of Mr. Ashutosh Pathak,” the complaint read.