In Bengaluru, two bank managers booked, 2 held

‘LAUNDERING OF `5 CRORE’

THE CBI has booked a chief man- ager of a branch of Karnataka Bank, a branch manager of Dhanlaxmi Bank and Secure India Value Ltd, a private cash lo- gistics firm, in Bengaluru for al- legedly facilitating laundering of unaccounted money.

They allegedly helped divert new currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 denomination, worth more than Rs 5 crore and meant for replenishing ATMS, to a group of four government engineers and contractors following the decision to invalidate high-denomination currency.

Having registered a case of criminal conspiracy, cheating, criminal breach of trust, forgery, falsification of accounts and corruption against seven people on December 3, the CBI on Monday arrested two people Chandrakant Ramalingam and Nazeer Ahmed — for involvement in the case.

The FIR names Suryanarayan Bairy, chief manager of Karnataka Bank’s Indiranagar branch in Bengaluru, and Umashankar Renuka, branch manager of Dhanlaxmi Bank at JC Nagar here, among alleged facilitators of illegal cash exchange. These exchanges led to unearthing of Rs 5.7 crore in new currency from four people — including government civil contractor Ibrahim Shariff and government engineer S C Jayachandra. Secure India Value, which handles funds for nearly 18 banks, is also one of the parties accused.

The illegal conversions had emerged last week after the Income Tax department carried out raids at 10 different location in Bengaluru, Erode and Chennai and unearthed a large amount of unaccounted-for wealth belonging to a group of four government engineers and contractors.

According to the FIR, Suryanarayana Bairy “falsified accounts of his bank” by using forged documents of identity and address proof of several individuals to create the impression that new currency notes had been exchanged through counters and ATMS of the bank, the FIR states.