Fraud case: Swindled by his bank

Five bankers withdraw Rs133m from ex-DSP’s account.

LAHORE:

The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) arrested five bank officials on Saturday for siphoning off Rs133 million from the account of a retired deputy superintendent of police (DSP), The Express Tribune has learnt.

According to FIA officials, DSP (retd) Muhammad Amin filed a complaint against some officials of Silk Bank, Defence Housing Authority (DHA) branch, for fraudulently withdrawing Rs133 million from his account using two forged cheques. FIA Commercial Banking Circle Additional Director Basharat Mehmood Shahzad told CBC Assistant Director Aftab Butt and FIA CBC Inspector Haji Irshad Ahmad to investigate the matter.



After examining bank records and statements of the complainant and bank officials, the FIA determined that four bank officials had withdrawn the amount from Amin’s account.

A Confidential Final Report (CFR) held Silk Bank’s DHA Branch Manager Nadeem Faisal, acting Branch Manager Muhammad Imtiaz , Operations  Manager Nadeem Anwar, Relationship Manager Moeedur Rehman and Kashar, a cashier, guilty.

The investigation revealed that the amount had been withdrawn using two cheques that carried Amin’s [forged] signature. The cheque leaves had not been taken out of Amin’s cheque book, Shahzad said. Rs70 million was withdrawn on September 27, 2012 and Rs63 million on October 3, 2012. The signatures on the cheques had been printed by the bank officials, he said.

The FIA learnt that the bank had been sending Amin statements that did not show that the amount had been withdrawn from his account.

Amin discovered the fraud when he went to the bank and asked a bank official, not involved in the scam, to check the status of his account. The official informed him about the withdrawn money.

The five officials suspected of carrying out the scam have been arrested.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 4^th, 2013.