Cashier cheats bank of Rs 67 lakh

Siphoned Off Money From Other Accounts Into Four Fictitious Ones

By Mateen Hafeez/TNN

Mumbai: A clerk-cum-cashier of the Sarvodaya Co-operative Bank was arrested by the economic offences wing (EOW) of the crime branch on charges of using his colleagues’ passwords to operate fictitious accounts and siphoning off Rs 67.86 lakh.

Vikas Shankar Joshi (30), a commerce graduate from Vikas Night College at Vikhroli, joined the bank as a clerk in 2002. Good at computer operations, Joshi was asked to look after all financial transactions and help other employees in their work as well. A promotion to the cashier’s post soon followed.

According to the police, it was while working at the bank’s Andheri branch that Joshi opened three fictitious accounts and maintained them by using the logins and passwords of four different colleagues.

Meanwhile, Joshi founded Om Sai Sahkari Patpedi, a small saving system which works like a bank, and went on to appoint a few people as officebearers saying he could not juggle two jobs. In mid-2005, he issued a bogus cheque of Rs 21 lakh through Om Sai Patpedi and deposited it in one of the fictitious accounts.

The cheque bounced. However, instead of showing that the cheque had been dishonoured, Joshi used the same cheque to siphon off money from other accounts in the bank into his own account. Using his access to confidential files, he then deleted all the entries of debit and credit from the accounts he had hacked into.

Last year, Joshi was transferred to the Bhandup branch. Here again he opened a fictitious account. In September 2005, he made entries showing a transfer of Rs 35 lakh from Bhandup to Andheri branch in the fictitious accounts.

Meanwhile, the bank took up modernisation of its computer system, and Joshi was asked to supervise the process. It was then that one of the computer engineers who was working on the project informed the bank’s higher authorities about four nameless accounts.

The bank officials conducted an internal inquiry and zeroed in on Joshi since two entries in the fraud were made against his personal account.

“It was the only mistake that Joshi made. When he was questioned he could not give satisfactory answers. Then the bank general manager, approached the police and lodged a formal complaint. Joshi was remanded to police custody till February 4,’’ police said.

The Times of India, February 2, 2006