The Central Crime Branch (CCB) has arrested three employees of a private bank in Anna Nagar for allegedly misappropriating over Rs8 crore from customer accounts through document forgery and cheque fraud over several years.
The arrested individuals have been identified as:
Venugopal (50) – Deputy Manager
Kulothungan (49) – Cashier
Dhanasekaran (41) – Cashier
The arrests were made following a complaint filed by a relative of an NRI couple who held Non-Resident External (NRE) and Non-Resident Ordinary (NRO) accounts at the same branch.
The couple, currently residing in the United States, noticed unauthorized withdrawals amounting to Rs1.43 crore from their accounts between 2015 and 2020. These transactions were carried out using forged cheques bearing counterfeit versions of their signatures.
A deeper probe by the Bank Fraud Investigation Wing (BFIW) of the CCB uncovered that the scam extended beyond the couple’s accounts. The trio had allegedly forged multiple customer signatures, encashed fake cheques, and even misused funds from fixed deposits, accumulating a total fraud amount exceeding Rs8 crore.
Police said further investigations are underway to identify if more staff were involved or if additional accounts were compromised.
