“In September when we discovered that money was being transferred out of accounts we launched an internal investigation but reached a dead end after we learnt that the accounts where the money was going were bogus. We made a complaint to the Mulund police. They not only nabbed the four accused within a fortnight but also unearthed a racket that extended to several of our branches across the city. The police prevented a huge scam,” said an official from the Mulund branch on conditions of anonymity.  

 On January 2 assistant police inspector Rajendra Sangle of the Mulund police station nabbed four persons, including a clerk, from the Mahim Branch of the bank. The clerk had created bogus accounts in the Mulund Colony Branch and siphoned off with money to the tune of Rs 1.86 lakh. During the course of investigation the police learnt that besides three branches in Mulund, the accused had opened bogus accounts in the Byculla, Bandra, Thane and Dombivali branches as well.

“After we found that there were suspicious money transfers from three accounts in our branch we summoned the account holders They confirmed that they hadn’t asked for the money transfers. After our internal investigations failed to reveal anything we filed a complaint with the Mulund police,” said the official. The bank officials later learnt that the money was transferred into three other accounts in the same branch but upon verifying the account holders’ details they discovered that the names and the addresses provided were fake.

  “Unfettered by the dead end and eager to investigate whether a bank official was involved, we asked the head office of the bank in Pune to provide us with details of those who had recently viewed details of the accounts,” said Sangle, adding, “The details revealed that all the three accounts had been repeatedly viewed by an employee at a particular terminal in the Mahim branch. Armed with this evidence we arrested Hemant Kumar Karbari. He led us to Subash Salunkhe, Sunil Mohite and Santosh Nagap,” said Sangle.

Karbari would identify the accounts which were rarely used and the others would open accounts in the same branch, using the names of the original account holders as introducers. He would claim over 40 per cent of the booty, added Sangle.