Former Banker Among Eight Held for ₹4.8 Crore Loan Fraud

Hyderabad:The economic offences wing (EOW) of Cyberabad police arrested eight persons, including a former bank branch manager, in connection with a loan fraud involving forgery, cheating, and document fabrication case. One such scheme defrauded the State Bank of India (SBI) Sanathnagar Branch of `4.8 crore. A case was registered under Sections 420, 409, 467, 468, 471, 477(A), 120 (B) of the IPC.

The arrested include Karthik Rai, Mattepally Srishanth, Pole Vishal, Dagala Raju, Sudhansu Shekhar Parida, Md. Wajeed, U. Sunil Kumar, Bhaskar Goud and Amanchi Upender.

The scam came to light when Ramachandra Raghavendra Prasad Paparapatti, manager of the SBI Sanathnagar branch, lodged a complaint with the EOW police.

The accused, including former ranch manager Karthik Rai, exploited the bank's lending process through fraudulent loan approvals, forged documents and illegal fund diversions. Between June 2020 and June 2023, Karthik Rai allegedly facilitated unauthorised loans by approving applications backed by falsified salary slips and fake identification documents in exchange for a five per cent commission.

Rai was initially arrested by the Sanathnagar police on May 20. Due to the case's severity, it was later transferred to EOW PS for further investigation.

Firstly, Karthik Rai deceived customers by claiming that their existing bank loan was being closed and that a fresh loan would be sanctioned. Exploiting their trust, he approved new loans and diverted the funds to third parties. He then transferred the customers' fixed deposit amounts to third parties by misleading them. Further, upon a customer's death, Rai claimed his funds without the knowledge of the legal heirs of the deceased.

Rai also sanctioned eight unauthorised loans totalling ₹1,02,07,400.

During investigation it was found that the scam mastermind was Md. Wajeed, who came up with a systematic scheme to secure unauthorised loans. Dagala Raju, a loan agent, recruited individuals posing as employees of the Telangana State Residential School and College for Girls. Loan approvals were obtained using falsified documents in exchange for a commission.

Sudhansu Shekhar Parida created counterfeit salary slips and ID cards, Amanchi Upender ran a xerox unit in Prakash Nagar, while Bhaskar Goud provided rubber stamps that are required for authenticating documents.