Loan fraud came to light after woman checked a/c

TNN / Dec 17, 2023, 08:22 IST

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Loan fraud came to light after woman checked a/c

Thiruvananthapuram: The multi-crore fraud, in which subsidized loans of Thiruvananthapuram city corporation were siphoned off by a gang, came to light after a woman checked her account, said the probe officer.The five-member gang would help women to form self-help groups (SHGs) and process documents for the loan. The loans were sanctioned through Indian Bank and the beneficiaries were asked to open new accounts in the bank by the accused. For processing the loan, the gang charged each member a fee of Rs 1,500. Once the loan was sanctioned, the gang would transfer the money using the details they had accessed while forming the SHG and opening bank accounts.

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“The accused believed that the beneficiaries would not check the new accounts as all of them had another bank account for their regular business,” said police. However, when the bank blocked the regular account of a ‘beneficiary’ for non-payment of monthly installments of the loan, she approached the bank directly. “She took a detailed account statement and found that a loan was credited to her account and it was later transferred to another account.

She immediately informed other members in the SHGs and all of them checked their bank accounts. It was then the massive fraud to the tune of Rs 4 crore came to light,” police said.Fort police arrested Rajila Rajan, 32, of Thekkevilakam Puthanveedu, Murukkumpuzha, in connection with the incident. Four others of the gang — Gracy, Anees, Anu and Rajesh — are still absconding. “Rajila’s role was to canvas unsuspecting women to form SHGs and apply for subsidized loans for starting various ventures offered by the corporation,” police said.“The gang was planning to invest the siphoned off money in some other business. Each self-help group gets Rs 5 lakh and Rs 3.5 lakh comes under subsidy. The plan was to settle the loans using the subsidy amount. However, all their plans went awry after one woman checked her account,” said police.We also published the following articles recently

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