ICICI Bank: Through the years, an ICICI Bank branch manager and his assistants were able to exceed their business performance targets by taking money from the branch’s unknowing customers’ bank accounts. To provide the impression that they were opening new FD, current, and savings accounts, they withdrew this money.
Extortion Enters the Scene
But as word spread, someone began extorting the bank branch managers. In an attempt to conceal their wrongdoings, they escalated their money-laundering scheme, withdrawing additional funds from customer bank accounts and using them as hush money to pay a person in Udaipur.
According to Rajasthan Police officials, the person residing in Udaipur who has been blackmailing the branch manager of ICICI Bank has received roughly Rs 2.5 crore in hush money to date. The preliminary investigations have shown that the branch manager and his associates committed this embezzlement under pressure to satisfy business performance targets, according to Amit Kumar, Superintendent of Police (SP), Pratapgarh, Rajasthan.
These officials had been opening new current accounts, savings accounts, and FD accounts with the proceeds from overdrafts they had created against FDs. The financial jargon for this method is “Entry and Reverse Entry.” The newly opened savings, current, and FD accounts would be cancelled within a few days, and the funds would be returned to the original bank accounts. This has been a long-running effort.
ICICI Bank Reassurance
An ICICI Bank representative, speaking solely about the situation described in this article, stated, “We would like to reassure that there will be no financial loss to genuine customers. Further, we have a zero-tolerance policy towards fraud, and hence the employee, who was found involved prima facie, has been suspended pending further investigation. We have also filed a complaint with Police and are co-operating in their investigation.” While ICICI Bank executives claim that just Rs 2 crore was embezzled, a press release from the Rajasthan Police states that the amount embezzled was Rs 2.5 crore.
False Assurance and Suspicions
The long-running scam was only discovered when a worker discovered that her friend’s bank account was missing roughly Rs 70 lakh. Knowing about the current scam, the employee’s friend was told that Rs 70 lakh will be taken out of his account and refunded to him in three to four days. “However, the money was never reversed back to the individual’s account, and this raised suspicion of the bank employee,” says SP Kumar.
After confronting the branch manager, the aforementioned employee requested assistance from the police after not receiving a sufficient response. It resulted in the series of disclosures that exposed this fraud.
Discovery and Alarm
On February 6, 2024, Manoj Bhowrani, regional head of ICICI Bank, Banswara, addressed a letter to the Rajasthan police department letting them know about the scam that one of the bank’s employees was involved in. The scam’s methodology was also revealed in Bhowrani’s letter.
An excerpt from the letter that Manoj Bhowrani sent to the Rajasthan Police stated, “I want to inform you through this letter that this morning account holders of ICICI Bank Dhariyawad branch, came to the branch and inquired about their fixed deposits, on checking which it was found that there was no balance in those fixed deposits. By making OD against those fixed deposits wrongly and without the knowledge of the customers, the amount has been fraudulently withdrawn from those OD accounts. The mobile numbers of the customers have also been wrongly updated in those OD accounts. The amount embezzled in this entire case is Rs 2,00,00,000/-, there is a possibility of increase in the amount in further investigation. All the customers have also lodged their complaints in the branch Dhariyawad. That is also attached with this letter. It seems that this whole matter is of fraud with customers. Therefore, Sir, I request you to conduct an impartial investigation into this entire matter and appropriate action should be taken against the culprits.”
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