Bhubaneswar: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Odisha Police on Monday arrested four persons in connection with a Rs 8.1 crore loan fraud case involving the State Bank of India (SBI).
The accused have been identified as Smruti Ranjan Sethy and M. Dibyashree Jyoti Ranjan of Jagatsinghpur and Niranjan Behera and Debasish Behera of the Nayapalli area in Bhubaneswar.
All four are scheduled to be produced before the Designated Court under the OPID Act in Cuttack today.
According to an official release, the case was registered on the basis of a complaint by Shiba Sundar Sahoo, Regional Manager, SBI, Bhubaneswar. The accused, in collusion with others, fraudulently availed 234 Xpress Credit Loans totaling Rs 8.1 crore from SBI’s Jaydev Vihar (92 loans) and Damana Chhak (142 loans) branches between November 2021 and January 2023.
The loans were sanctioned using forged employment records, allegedly showing the applicants as employees of several private organizations, including Capital Trust Ltd., G4S Secure Solutions Pvt. Ltd., Muthoot Microfin Ltd., Narayana Hrudalaya Ltd., and others.
Investigations revealed that the arrested persons acted as middlemen, preparing fake documents such as salary slips, employment letters, bank statements, and KYC documents for ineligible applicants. Once the loans were disbursed, the borrowers defaulted on repayments, resulting in non-performing assets (NPAs) with an outstanding amount of Rs 4.77 crore.
Funds amounting to Rs 19.08 lakh, Rs 2.42 lakh, Rs 94,000, and Rs 50,000 were reportedly transferred to the accounts of the four accused from the loanees’ accounts.
The EOW has seized a laptop and five mobile phones suspected to contain incriminating material. Further investigation is underway.
