CBI probes bank fraud in which CPT lost Rs 45 cr

The CBI has named Indian Bank, Koyambedu branch manager Sermathiraja, private persons Ganesh Natarajan and Manimozhi as accused in the FIR registered under various IPC sections for forgery, impersonation, cheating, criminal breach of trust and public servant taking undue advantage for the dishonest performance of duty.

The CBI says that the Chennai Port Trust selected Indian Bank Koyambedu branch for a Rs 100 crore term deposit in the second week of March this year. Within three days, Ganesh Natarajan, claiming to be the deputy director, finance of Chennai Port Trust opened a current account in the bank in ‘official capacity’ using fake documents and transferred half of the term deposit to the new current account.

The CBI believes that he could not have done that without the knowledge of the bank manager.

He then starting withdrawing or transferring money to other accounts from the current account. The fraud was detected in May during the lockdown and Ganesh Natarajan’s associate Manimozhi along with one Selvakumar were caught redhanded by other bank officials when the two went there to withdraw money. The case was initially probed by Chennai CCB but handed over to CBI because of the volume of money involved.