The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has filed a chargesheet against 18 accused, including a former branch manager of Indian Bank, in connection with a Rs 45 crore fraud case involving Chennai Port Trust.

The CBI registered a case on July 31 last year on a complaint from the Indian Bank in Chennai against two persons, the manager of Indian Bank’s Koyambedu branch, and others on allegations of fraud, forgery and impersonation with the intention to cheat the bank to the tune of Rs 100.57 crore.

The complaint further alleged a loss to the tune of Rs 45.4 crore was caused to Indian Bank by way of fore-closing or pre-closing of several term deposits (fixed deposits) created in the name of the Chennai Port Trust (CPT) and also transferring or withdrawing the said amount through various accounts etc.

The agency earlier conducted searches at 28 places in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, which, according to officials, led to the recovery of several incriminating materials and evidence.

Twelve people, including two foreign nationals – Steve Bertrand Yannick, a resident of Cameroon, and Musasa Ilunga Lucien alias Bo Bo, a resident of Congo, were arrested for their alleged role in bank fraud. The CBI officials found that both the foreign nationals were on student visas and were not in possession of their original passports. All the arrested accused are in judicial custody.

“It was alleged that the accused committed the offence of criminal conspiracy, impersonation, fabrication of false documents, submission of forged documents, criminal misappropriation, Criminal Breach of Trust, fraudulent transactions etc and caused wrongful loss of Rs 45.40 crore to the bank,” the CBI said.

The CBI has alleged that the accused allegedly exploited the situation of investment of surplus cash available with Chennai Port Trust in the form of term deposits and fixed deposits with the banks for earning interest through limited tender process and also the willingness of the bank to attract investment in the form of term deposits.

“It was alleged that the fraudsters exploited the situation to their benefit by approaching the branch manager and also Chennai Port Trust and induced the bank manager to participate in the tender,” said a CBI officer.

The then bank manager, A Sermathi Raja, allegedly conspired with the other accused and accepted the proposed investment and actively participated in the bidding floated by Chennai Port Trust by quoting arbitrarily higher interest rate for the proposed investment than the maximum allowable interest rate of the bank with the intention of winning the bid.

Indian Bank, Koyambedu branch, was successful in five tenders floated by Chennai Port Trust and got the investment in the form of term deposits of Rs 100.57 crore during the period between March and May 2020.

“It was also alleged that after the Fixed Deposits (FD) was created, the FD receipts (bonds) against the investment were handed over directly to the fraudsters by the branch manager instead of delivering the same in person to the investing organization. The accused, instead of delivering the original FD receipts to Chennai Port Trust allegedly made forged FD receipts and submitted the same to CPT,” the CBI officer further said.

The CBI, in its chargesheet, has alleged that the original FDRs (fixed deposit receipts) were submitted to the bank with a request to preclose it. One of the fraudsters allegedly impersonated himself as an official of Chennai Port Trust (CPT) and opened a fake current account through forged documents in the name of CPT so as to enable to transfer the amounts realized from the preclosure of FDs into the fake current account.

“Subsequently, details of several bank accounts were collected from several persons and the money was transferred into their accounts based on the forged request letter in the name of Chennai Port Trust. The alleged money received in different accounts was subsequently withdrawn and collected by the fraudsters and was shared on the basis of the prearranged commission. In that process, the fraud was committed one after another after each investment was made by the Chennai Port Trust and a total of Rs 45.40 crore was swindled by the accused,” said the CBI.

Along with A Sermathi Raja, CBI has named V Sudalaimuthu, V Manimozhi, N Ganesh, J Selvakumar, A Arun, M Vijay Heralld, M Rajesh Singh, S Siyadh, S Afsar, K Zakir Hussain, VS Arumugham, V Jegan, M Mohammed Siyad, M John Mento, SH Noor Mohamed, C Meldar and A Mathusoothanan as accused in its chargesheet.