SBI Loan Fraud of 16.71 crores, 6 got arrested: Fooled the bank with forged documents

The EOW(Economic Offences Wing) arrested six persons because of their connection with an alleged SBI loan fraud of 16.71 crores. The six accused are Anirban Patnaik and Anupama Dash from Bhubaneswar, Tophan Rout and Satyaban Rout from Khandapada, Tukuna Mallick from Badamba and Feroz Khan from Kakatpur. As a result of this large-scale SBI loan fraud, they were produced before the court on Wednesday.

The investigation started because of a complaint by Shiba Sundara Sahoo who is the regional branch manager of SBI, Bhubaneswar. According to his complaint, the accused persons obtained 161 Xpress credit loans from different branches of SBI in Bhubaneswar between November 2022 and October 2023.Further investigation revealed that they forged documents to obtain this huge loan. They portrayed themselves as PhonePe employees and took the loan on a similar basis.

How did they make the SBI loan fraud happen?

As a result of a deep investigation, a lot of facts came to the forefront. Anirban took a building on rent at DLF, Patia, Bhubaneswar, to run his company, Purvi Venture Pvt. Ltd. However, he, along with his friends, portrayed it as the regional office of phone pe. They used signboards, stickers of digital payment, etc., to make it look real.

In conclusion, all the six accused persons created a concrete plan to make this SBI loan fraud happen. During the pre-sanction visit by the bank, they showed their rental building as the phonepe office. Besides, they used fake email IDs of phonepe to give clearance emails. They tried to take the loan as an employee of Phone pe.

How huge is this SBI loan fraud?

From various branches of SBI, the accused persons have managed to get 161 corporate loans. The accused persons received 35% of the loan amount from the loanees to get it sanctioned for them. With the identity of regional phonepe employees, they not only cheated the bank but also fooled a lot of innocent people.

The agency said, “This came to the fore during an internal investigation following non-repayment for the loan amount. Many incriminating materials like mobile phones containing incriminating messages pertaining to the fraud have been recovered and seized from those arrested.”