The Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of the State Crime Branch arrested a former Remuna Bank of India (BOI) Branch Manager on the charge of financial embezzlement.
The accused Dugashankar Panda was taken into custody by the EOW on Saturday and he was forwarded to court after being booked under Sections 419,420,467,471,406 of IPC and 66 and 66 D of IT Act
During Panda’s tenure as Branch Manager nearly Rs 1.32 crore was siphoned from the bank in the name of several dead persons whose pension amount was drawn from the Remuna branch.
The investigating agency ascertained during investigation that two pensioners Parsuram Giri of Mendra village and Sabitri Behera of Naraharipur had died in 2014 yet every month their pension amounts were credited to their account and further withdrawn from ATMs through debit cards .
After these fraudulent activities were detected by incumbent Branch Manager Swaraj Mohanty, he lodged an FIR with the Remuna police in November 2018 and subsequently the matter was handed over to EOW .
The EOW initially on December 14 arrested a banking correspondent Pravat Das (35) of the bank after finding his involvement . Das manipulating the system had generated three ATM debit cards in the deceased pensioners.
In the case of deceased Giri and Behera, Das had generated three debit cards. These debit cards were issued during the period of Panda, when he was branch head. Further investigation led to the arrest of Panda.
Shockingly, these illegal transactions were being carried out even without life certificates of the pensioners.
The investigating agency learnt that the fraudulent transactions were made in connivance with former manager Panda.
EOW officials said they were looking into the other cases of withdrawals in the name of dead persons.