Bhubaneswar, Dec 15 : A designated court in Balasore under OPID on Friday convicted two bank fraudsters for unauthorised and fraudulent transfer of Rs 2.46 crore from the official accounts of Barbil Municipality.
The court held the accused persons—Sayed Shahbaaz Naqvi and Subas Ghisingh Giri—guilty U/s 420/467/468/471/120-B IPC and sentenced them to undergo Rigorous Imprisonment (RI) for seven years and fine of Rs 2.5 lakhs each.
On default of the fine, the accused persons will undergo further imprisonment of 27 months each, the court ruled.
According to the EOW of Bhubaneswar,the fraudsters had used clone cheques and forged signatures of the Barbil Municipality to transfer the money from the Barbil branch of Bank of Baroda in March 2022.
A case was registered on the allegation of Barbil Municipality Executive Officer Abhisek Panda, who alleged fraudulent and unauthorised transfer of Rs 2,45,60,800 from their official account maintained with Bank of Baroda, Barbil using clone cheques and his forged signature.
Investigation revealed that on March 16, 2022 and on March 21, 2022, the accused persons, Subas Ghisingh Giri and Sayed Shahbaaz Naqvi, in a criminal conspiracy with others, managed to transfer Rs 2,45,60,800 from the account by using the clone cheque prepared by forging the bank cheques and the signature of the Executive Officer.
Out of Rs 2,45,60,800, Rs 70,16,520 was diverted to the account of Sayed Shahbaaz Naqvi maintained with the Bank of India, while Rs 25 lakhs were found in the account of Subas Ghisingh Giri maintained with ICICI Bank.
Subhash Ghising Giri was arrested from Barrackpore, West Bengal,, in 2022, and Sayed Shahbaaz Naqvi (from Raipur, Chattisgarh) in 2022.
Based on evidence, a case was filed in the Designated Court under the OPID Act, Balasore. This was the first conviction in Odisha in the cheque cloning case, EOW sources said.