2 arrested in Odisha for ₹9.6 crore bank fraud

Bhubaneswar/Baripada: The Economic Offenses Wing (EOW) of the Odisha Police has arrested two more people for their involvement in a ₹9.6 crore bank fraud case, officials said on Friday.

With these new arrests, the police have now arrested a total of six people. An EOW official said the new arrests were made on Thursday in Raipur, the capital of Chhattisgarh, and the accused have been identified as Surajit Roy and Sameer Srivastava. They were brought to Odisha on transit remand on Friday.

The arrests were made based on a police case filed by the chief manager of the Baripada branch of a PSU bank.

According to the police, fraudsters withdrew money from the bank account of the District Mineral Foundation (DMF) Trust in Mayurbhanj by forging cheques.

They said that ₹5.04 crore of the illegally transferred funds has been blocked and ₹13.56 lakh in 33 accounts has been frozen. Roy and Srivastava were found to be the owners/signatory authorities of Roy Associates and SS Traders.

A total of ₹45.19 lakh was transferred to the bank account of Roy’s firm, while ₹39.19 lakh was transferred to the account of Srivastava’s company.

Officials said that during the investigation, the EOW discovered that the two arrested individuals were members of a larger gang, with a complex network spread across Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, West Bengal, and Odisha.

Following their arrest, the EOW obtained important clues about the entire gang. They said they had been involved in such scams for the past four years.

Earlier, four accused named Pomesh Tembhere, Ghanshyam Ahuja, Ajmer Mandal, and Brajesh Mishra were arrested in the fraud case.