Five Syndicate Bank officials booked in Rs.1,000 crore scam

The CBI on Tuesday registered a case against five Syndicate Bank officials, a CA, three private people and others on charges of causing a loss of Rs.1,000 crore to the bank by discounting of fake cheques and bills against fake insurance policies and overdraft limits against non-existent policies.

The bank officials have been identified as New Delhi branch's then general manager Satish Kumar Goel, Jaipur regional office deputy general manager Sanjeev Kumar, Jaipur branch chief manager Deshraj Meena and assistant general managers of Malviya Nagar branch in New Delhi and Jaipur branch Adarsh Manchanda and Awdhesh Tiwari respectively. 

Sources said that the fraud was unearthed recently and a Central Bureau of Investigation complaint was made after the suspension of the bank officials. 

Goel was recently transferred to the Syndicate Bank's New Delhi Branch. 

The other accused have been identified as chartered accountant Bharat Bamb, a resident of Udaipur, and three Jaipur residents identified as Shankar Khandelwal, Piyush Jain and Vineet Jain. 

All of them have been booked by the CBI under charges of criminal conspiracy, using a forged document as genuine, cheating and forgery of Indian Penal Code (IPC) and sections of Prevention of Corruption Act. 

"It was alleged that the accused persons in connivance with the bank officials committed a fraud of Rs. 1,000 crore by resorting to discounting of fake cheques and fake inland bills against fake LICs and arranging over-draft limit against non-existent LIC policies," said CBI spokesperson Devpreet Singh. 

He said that the fraud was allegedly committed at Jaipur and Udaipur branch in Rajasthan and Malviya Nagar branch in Delhi. 

"It was further alleged that the bank officials of the two branches were colluded with private persons in the crime since 2011. The amount involved in individual transactions ranged from Rs. 40 lakh to Rs.5 crore but majority of them were in the range of Rs.2.5-4 crore," the official said. 

To avoid detection, many of these transactions were nullified from the proceeds of new fraudulent transactions, he added.

"Searches are being conducted at 10 locations including Jaipur, Udaipur and New Delhi which led to recovery of incriminating documents," the official added.