There was a twist to Canara bank fraud case in the Patahanmthitta district of Kerala on Tuesday when the probe team was baffled to find that the bank account of the main accused Vijeesh Varghese has zero balance.
Vijeesh was nabbed by the police on Sunday in Bengaluru. The accused had allegedly embezzled over Rs 8 crore from the bank. On inspection, police were unable to find the stolen money.
Vijeesh Varghese had deposited the money in the 3 accounts owned by him, 2 accounts of his wife besides his mother-in-law and father-in-law’s account. In the audit examination, it was found that he had transferred Rs 6 crore into these accounts. But police could not find the money in the accounts. Surprisingly, only minimum balance was found in some accounts. Some had zero balance.
Ever since the fraud came to light, police had taken steps to freeze these accounts. But in the investigation held, it was known that money was transferred from here. The police suspect that Vijeesh might have withdrawn money with the help of his family members.
Vijeesh told police that he had invested a major share of the money in stock market and the police would be able to confirm this only after examining the account. The Crime branch will take over the case soon. IPC 420, IT Act 66 among other sections have been charged against him.
Though the district police team in Pathanamthitta earlier approached the state police headquarters for handing over the inquiry into the alleged financial fraud held in Canara Bank's branch-2 in Pathanamthitta town to the Crime Branch, the special investigation team arrested the accused before the case was handed over to the Crime Branch.
It was in February this year, the Pathanamthitta police team led by its inspector of police launched a hunt for 36-year-old Vijeesh Varghese, an ex-Navy person.
He had escaped along with his wife and two children.
The police, who traced his car from Kochi over a month ago, suspected that he used the car to escape from Pathanamthitta.
The accused, a native of Avaneeswaram in Pathanapuram, had been working as a clerk in the public sector bank since June 2019. He went missing after the bank authorities detected the alleged fraud.
According to a source with the bank, the accused was one of the good performing members of the branch and a favourite employee of the customers.
“So, nobody had any doubt about him. He closed the fixed deposit account of a bank staff’s wife without knowing that that customer was the wife of the bank's employee. The staff noticed that his wife’s fixed deposit account was closed and soon he alerted the senior officials. Then the senior officials of the bank soon checked it and found the financial fraud made by the accused. When the issue came to light, five employees of the branch including the branch manager were placed under suspension,” the source said.
The police received the complaint from the bank authorities on this regard on February 14, this year.
As per the investigation team, the accused was in charge of handling fixed deposits at the bank branch.
He used the system passwords to close the fixed deposit accounts of a few customers and transfer the amount to the bank accounts of his wife and other relatives.
The branch, originally of Syndicate Bank, became Canara Bank post the merger.
