Man held in 5-yr-old ₹21.32-cr bank scam

MUMBAI: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Mumbai police on Saturday arrested Abdul Zameer Khan, a 36-yearold man from Wadala, in connection with the siphoning off of ₹21.32 crore from the fixed deposits (FDS) of the Railway Goods Clearing and Forwarding Establishments Labour Board (RGCFLB). The main accused Rajan Sakhare was arrested in the same case three years ago.

Sakhare, who was the acting manager of the State Bank of India’s (SBI) Four Bungalows, Andheri West, branch at the time, had helped several accused fraudulently avail of an overdraft facility on the account in order to siphon off money from the RGCFLB’S fixed deposits worth ₹24 crore.

Khan, who is alleged to be close to Sakhare, was arrested on the complaint of Vijay Chaudhary, assistant labour commissioner and president of RGCFLB. The probe revealed that ₹1 crore of the siphoned-off amount was diverted to the bank account of his company, National Industries, while ₹4 lakh was diverted to his personal account. Khan also diverted ₹15.50 crore later to his company’s bank account and to the account of an ‘entry operator’ (those who use shell companies to channel the unaccounted income back into the books of accounts of business establishments by disguising it as loan or share capital) and later withdrew cash and gave it to another accused – Amit Dave. The RGCFLB, in 2016, had invested in FDS worth ₹24 crore in the Four Bungalows branch of the SBI. Sakhare and his group availed of the overdraft facility by forging documents.

“As per the rules, Sakhare was allowed to sanction an overdraft facility of ₹40 lakh. However, he sanctioned one worth ₹21.6 crore,” said an EOW officer. The scam surfaced during the bank’s internal probe, which found that Sakhare had violated rules pertaining to the procedure of deposit and advances with malafide intention.