Bengaluru: In the wake of the government scrapping Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 notes, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) banned issue of Demand Drafts (DD) through demonetised currency, fearing that they would be used to exchange currency. Its fears came true when the CBI uncovered a fraud in the the Basavanagudi branch of the Central Bank of India.
Sources said that the CBI conducted a surprise check at the Basavanagudi branch on November 28 and uncovered a host of irregularities. The audit revealed that DDs were fraudulently used to exchange Rs. 71.49 lakh of old currency into new notes.
Between November 15 and 18, S. Gopal and Ashwin G. Sunku bought 149 DDs, all staggered amounts but each less than Rs. 50,000, in favour of M/s Bajaj Finance Ltd, Pune. The duo are directors of a city-based private firm Omkar Parimal Mandir.
They subsequently cancelled all the 149 DDs and en-cashed them in the same branch in new Rs. 2,000 denomination notes, thereby facilitating a conversion in violation of RBI norms.
An FIR was registered by the CBI on Tuesday. It claimed that Mr. Gopal and Mr. Sunku, along with their family members, held 22 accounts in the branch into which high-value cash deposits totalling Rs. 1.24 crore were made from November 10 to 28. Later, all the money was transferred to the account of Omkar Parimal Mandir. None of these high-value deposits were flagged by the branch manager to Income Tax sleuths, as mandated.
Misuse of Jandhan Yojana
The audit also revealed misuse of a Jandhan Yojana account. An FIR registered by the CBI on Tuesday claims that Dhana Bhagya Kannappa allegedly deposited Rs. 2.30 lakh into his Jandhan account at the branch on November 13. The money was then transferred to the account of Omkar Parimal Mandir the same day.
Other discrepancies have been uncovered. The audit revealed an unexplained excess of Rs. 20 lakh in demonetised currency at the branch, which CBI sources said indicated further fraudulent transactions that are yet to be uncovered.
The CBI has booked S. Lakshminarayana, senior manager, Central Bank of India, Basavanagudi along with S. Gopal and Ashwin G. Sunku.
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Scrutiny at two banks
Bengaluru: CBI sleuths are busy auditing accounts in Karnataka Bank, Indiranagar and Dhanalaxmi Bank, J.C. Road, where similar currency exchange frauds but with different modus operandi were discovered.
Several teams are monitoring ATMs to look for diversion of new currency meant for kiosks of the 18 banks that Secure Value India, an ATM logistic firm, serviced. The firm is suspected of diverting Rs. 1.30 crore of new currency, issued by Dhanalaxmi Bank for ATMs, to several individuals from whom I-T sleuths recovered Rs. 5.7 crore in new currency.
Mischief in banks
