Central investigating agencies are continuously tightening their noose on cases of financial fraud and illegal transactions in Punjab National Bank (PNB). In a major legal action, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has filed a formal ‘Prosecution Complaint’ (charge sheet) in the special PMLA court in Patna against 6 accused in the ₹ 1.29 crore bank fraud and money laundering case that took place in PNB’s Muzaffarpur (Bihar) branch. The investigating agency has presented all the necessary evidence before the court and demanded strict legal action and conviction against the accused under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
The six main accused whose names have been included in the charge sheet filed by ED in the court are as follows:
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Mohammad Zafar Iqbal (Main beneficiary and conspirator)
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Nitesh Kumar Singh
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Santosh Anand
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Rajesh Kumar
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Manjhay Kumar Singh
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Kundan Kumar
According to the investigating agency, all these accused together in an organized manner carried out embezzlement of crores of rupees by breaking into the bank system and accounts of account holders.
The ED investigation has made a sensational revelation that the accused had used the cyber tactic of ‘SIM Swapping’ to make illegal withdrawals from bank accounts.
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Fraudsters issued duplicate SIMs of registered mobile numbers linked to bank accounts.
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Due to replacement of SIM, the original mobile network of the account holders got disconnected, due to which they could not receive SMS alerts of unauthorized transactions on the accounts and One Time Password (OTP).
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After this, the accused transferred a huge amount of ₹ 1.29 crore from various accounts through internet banking and digital transfer.
The investigation also revealed that after withdrawing money from the accounts, layering was done at several levels to hide the money trail. The defrauded amount was immediately transferred to different dummy bank accounts. The investigating agency found direct suspicious activity of approximately ₹83 lakh in 4 major bank accounts. Further, a large part of the amount was routed to the personal bank accounts of the main accused Mohammed Zafar Iqbal and the accounts of his proprietorship firm through Hawala channels and cash deposit machines in ATMs in various cities. Later this black money was distributed as commission among all the accused involved in the conspiracy.
ED has clarified that ECIR for money laundering was registered in this case on the basis of the original FIRs registered by Bihar Police. Although the prosecution complaint has been filed against the six main accused, further advance investigation in the case is still underway to unearth the financial transactions, possible nexus of bank employees and other contacts associated with the gang.