6 Arrested by EOW in Rs 16.71 Cr SBI Loan Fraud Case

Bhubaneswar: The Odisha Economic Offences Wing (EOW) arrested six persons on charges of a load fraud.

The arrested persons included Anirban Patnaik and Anupama Dash from Bhubaneswar, Tophan Rout and Satyaban Rout from Khandapada, Tukuna Mallick from Badamba and Feroz Khan from Kakatpur.

According to a press release of the EOW on Thursday, a case was registered on the written report of Shiba Sundara Sahoo, Regional Manager, State Bank of India, RBO, Bhubaneswar, wherein it was alleged that the accused persons availed 161 Xpress Credit Loans amounting to Rs 16.71 crore from Jaydev Vihar (139), Patia (5), Raghunathpur (11) and Jharpada Branch (6) of the State Bank of India (SBI) during the period between November 2022 and October 2023 by producing fake/fabricated employment records as employees of Phonepe Pvt. Ltd.

According to the investigation:

*Anirbana Patnaik had taken a building on rent at DLF, Patia in Bhubaneswar, to run office of his company ‘Purvi Venture Pvt. Ltd.’ but by entering into conspiracy with other accused persons. The building was projected to be the regional office of Phonepe at Bhubaneswar by putting up sign boards and stickers of Phonepe.

*Besides, one fake e-mail looking like that of Phonepe was created by the accused persons.

*The accused persons approached different branches of SBI in Bhubaneswar for Xpress Credit Loan (Personal Loan) by filing the inflated salary slip and the forged employment certificate of Phonepe.

*During pre-sanction visit, the above said building hired by Anirbana Patnaik was fraudulently shown as the regional office of Phonepe and the fake e-mail was used to give clearance during verification that the loan applicants are the employees of Phonepe. In this fraudulent manner, the accused persons managed to get total 161 Xpress Loans meant for the corporate sector sanctioned in the name of different accused by making/using forged documents.

*Investigation revealed that the accused were receiving 35% of the loan amount from the loanees to get it sanctioned in their favour. The loanees were being asked to submit their personal IDs like Aadhaar, PAN, and the other documents were being arranged/managed by the accused brokers. The fake e-mail was being used to give the false information that the accused were the employees of Phonepe. Amounts were being sent in advance for 3-4 consecutive months to the accounts of the loanees on a particular date of a month so as to give the impression that it happens to be the salary account of the loanees where regular salaries are being credited every month. When the loans became stressed due to non-refund of the loan amount, fraudulent activities were suspected which necessitated an internal investigation in which the fraud came to the surface.

*From among the arrested accused persons, Tophan Rout, Feroz Khan and Anupama Dash have taken loans by producing fake documents like fake employment certificate of Phonepe and inflated salary slips with the help of the other accused persons.

*Many incriminating materials like mobile phones containing the incriminating messages pertaining to the fraud have been recovered and seized from the arrested accused persons.

The investigation into the case is still underway.