ICICI Bank has filed a complaint with the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) against a branch manager, who managed to siphon off about Rs 12 crore by forging the signatures of an NRE account holder.
As per the complaint registered on January 6, 2024 at Vikas Puri Police Station in Delhi, an overdraft facility (amounting to Rs 2.7 crore) was created by Varun Vashishta, Branch Manager, ICICI Bank Vikas Puri Branch by forging signature of a customer on overdraft account opening form. A total amount of Rs 2.68 crore was siphoned off from the account.
The Bank urged the police to register an FIR against Vashishtha in this case.
While the initial amount of fraud was estimated to be around Rs 2.68 crore, further investigation by the complainant revealed that the overall amount of fraud could be close to Rs 12 crore.
The amount was likely to go up further to around Rs 16 crore if the interest amount was also included.
The victim NRI customer alleged that 43 beneficiaries were identified till date who had received money at various times from the NRE bank account of the complainant without authorisation.
She further alleged that cash to the tune of Rs 2.5 crore was withdrawn from her account over the years and about Rs 9.5 crore was transferred to the said 43 beneficiaries.
The complainant said her husband runs a hotel in Delhi and a point-of-sale machine (POS), and the current account of the said hotel were held at this branch of ICICI Bank. She complainant claimed that money was being deposited regularly in an NRE bank account held at the Vikaspuri branch of ICICI Bank since 2019.
The victim NRI customer revealed in the letter to the EOW that fixed deposit (FD) receipts were handed over by the ICICI Bank manager of Vikas Puri branch, with the stamp of ICICI Bank, and it was also emailed from the official Email ID of the bank branch manager.
As per the victim, she never visited the bank branch nor suspected the FDs to be fraudulent since the bank’s branch manager used to visit her home and handover the FD receipts and also emailed the same receipts with the bank’s seal from the bank’s official email ID. Investigation revealed that these FD receipts and interest certificates were forged.
As per the victim, she recently learned that her account was being managed by ICICI Bank Gurgaon branch, whereas she was under the impression that her bank account was being managed by ICICI Bank Vikaspuri branch. No official from the ICICI Bank Gurgaon branch ever contacted her, she added.
She alleged that the fraud started in 2019 and only recently came to light.