Bank manager held over black money conversion

Kolkata: The cyber crime police station of Bidhannagar Commissionerate on Wednesday night arrested the manager of a nationalised bank of Navi Mumbai branch on charges of attempting to convert black money to white by depositing it into the account of another person. Madhusudan Gandhi, the accused, is a resident of Pithapuram in East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh and was previously posted as branch manager in the Rajarhat branch of the same bank, where the complainant had an account.

According to sleuths of the Bidhannagar cyber crime police station, Santosh Sharma, the complainant from Dakshindari Road in Laketown, had received information on February 10 from the income tax authority that Rs 7,06,000 was deposited in a bank account, which was connected with the PAN of the complainant. Mr Sharma informed IT officials that he did not have any such account. He soon realised that another person had opened an account in his name and deposited the money and lodged a complaint with the cyber crime police station. 

“On the basis of the complaint, we learnt that the accused was posted as the branch manager when the complainant had opened the account. He used the photocopy of the pan card to open the account with an intention to keep IT officers in the dark about his black money,” deputy commissioner (headquarters) of Bidhannagar Commissionerate Santosh Pandey said. 

The police is not ruling out insiders’ role in the Rajarhat branch in helping the accused as they have learnt that a number of fictitious accounts had been created in the branch. “We will interrogate him to find out if any more bank official is involved,” an investigating officer said.