Telangana: State Bank of India (SBI) staff has been arrested on charges of siphoning off more than Rs 2.65 crore from dormant bank accounts.
A dormant bank account is an account that has not been used for a long time, usually 2 years or more. If there is no deposit, withdrawal, transfer, cheque use, ATM use, or online transaction, the bank may mark the account as dormant. The money in the account remains safe, but some services may stop, such as ATM card use, cheque book, or online banking. To activate the account again, the customer usually needs to visit the bank, complete KYC, and do a transaction.
The accused have been identified as P Venkata Ramanjaneyulu (37), posted at SBI’s Suryapet branch as bank manager, L Chakrapani (25), a contract housekeeping staff at SBI’s ACB (Agricultural Commercial Branch) in Devarakonda, K Ramlal (35), an SBI recovery agent from Miryalguda and Marepalli Shiva (31), a photographer from Devarakonda.
Police said Ramanjaneyulu falsified KYC updates to siphon off the money lying in dormant accounts. Police has recovered over Rs 2.4 crore of the misappropriated amount.
The fraud came to light after an alert email regarding an unauthorised KYC update was received by one of the account holders, P Narendra, of Hyderabad.
On Narendra’s complaint, SBI conducted an internal probe and detected the fraud. Based on a complaint lodged by an SBI representative, Devarakonda police registered a case on April 13 under relevant sections of BNS and IT Act.
Nalgonda SP Sharat Chandra Pawar said Chakrapani, the housekeeping staffer, worked at the branch for five years and used to assist the staff with computer operations.
While working at the Devarakonda branch, he met Ramanjaneyulu. “Chakrapani conspired with Ramanjaneyulu to target inactive accounts holding substantial balances. Ramanjaneyulu accessed details of 10 dormant accounts with substantial balance through the bank’s MIS system,” the SP said.
With the help of Ramlal and Shiva, they created fake Aadhaar and PAN cards in the names of the account holders. Using the fake documents, they changed the mobile numbers linked to the dormant accounts and completed illegal KYC updates. Subsequently, they created fresh user IDs, passwords and PINs on the SBI YONO app and transferred the money to accounts of their acquaintances.
The acquaintances were persuaded to withdraw the cash and hand it over in return for a commission,” the SP said.
Chakrapani and Ramanjaneyulu got a share of 40% each, while Ramlal and Shiva got 10% each. Police recovered over Rs 2.42 crore from the accounts of the accused and their acquaintances. Six smartphones and a laptop were also seized.
Police is investigating the case and more details will be released soon.
