LUCKNOW: A 42-year-old bank manager, who was absconding for the two years in a case of embezzlement of Rs 45 crore, was arrested on Monday.
The accused, Akhilesh Kumar of Old Labourer Colony, in Bazaarkhala, had a case lodged against him at Krishnanagar police station by the regional office head of Canara Bank (Vipin Khand) Manoj Kumar Meena. The accused was holding the post of bank manager at Alambagh branch office, located in LDA colony in Krishnanagar, when he committed the fraud.
Kumar had gone into hiding after his name surfaced in the crime and was untraceable since then. DCP, central zone, Aparna Kaushik announced a reward of Rs 25,000 on his arrest but his whereabouts could not be ascertained.
Accused purchased lands, goods
We had declared him an absconder after an FIR was lodged against him,” said ACP, Krishnanagar, Pankaj Srivastava.
On Monday, a police team was tipped off about Kumar’s presence in Krishnanagar after which a team swooped down and nabbed him.
He owned up his crime and disclosed that he had invested the money in purchasing lands, goods and other items.
An officer privy to the probe said that when Kumar was the branch manager, some persons, identified as Manoj Kumar, Raj Duggal, Amit Dubey, and Sanjay Agarwal, had opened an account in the branch in 2019. They later told Kumar that they wanted to get a fixed deposit of Rs 41 crore done in the name of the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI).
Later, four persons – Satish Tripathi, Amit Tiwari, Om Prakash alias Manager, and Prabhat Srivastava – met Kumar and offered him Rs1.25 crore bribe for transferring the FD money to their account.
“The accused was assured that before the FD would mature, they would return the money,” a police officer said.
However, when the original depositors, who had got the FD done, demanded their money on maturity, the accused reached out to Satish and Amit.
“The manager got Rs 25 crore from them but the original depositors sensed foul play and informed higher authorities,” the officer added.
A probe was conducted and Kumar was transferred from that branch pending inquiry. Later, when he was found guilty, he escaped.
