Five people, including a bank employee, have been arrested for allegedly siphoning off ₹1.35 crore from the account of a Germany-based NRI, the police said on Tuesday.
The accused have been identified as Sumit Pandey (24), Shailenda Pratap Singh (42), Neelam (32), Jagdamba Prasad Pandey (22), and Adarsh Jaiswal (23).
According to the police, in November last year, Kanika Girdhar, an NRI residing in Germany, approached them saying that ₹1.35 crore had been siphoned off from her account with a private bank in central Delhi’s Rajindar Nagar — her fixed deposit had been liquidated and cash had been withdrawn. When she approached the bank, she was told that a person who introduced himself as Vishal, her brother, had collected her fresh cheque book and ATM card, but she had never requested the bank to issue anything.
During investigation, the involvement of Mr. Sumit Pandey, an employee of the bank, was revealed following which he was arrested. He told the police that after he got to know about the amount in Ms. Girdhar’s account, he shared this with Mr. Singh, who hatched a plan to withdraw the money.
Mr. Singh set up a fake construction company in Faridabad and hired 10 labourers, and got their accounts opened in different banks. “He got the mobile number registered with Ms. Girdhar’s account reissued in that of a labourer and installed the internet banking app on this SIM. The registered number was reissued as it was not in use for three months and was inactivated,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (Central) Shweta Chauhan said.
Ms. Neelam, posing as Ms. Girdhar, then requested the bank’s customer care to reissue the cheque book and ATM card.
The police said all the accused are highly educated with Mr. Singh holding a Masters in Commerce from Delhi University and Ms. Neelam holding a Master of Education. While Mr. Jagdamba Prasad Pandey is a graduate with Sanskrit (honours), Mr. Jaiswal is pursuing Bachelor of Arts.
