Bhubaneswar, Apr 30: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Odisha Police has busted a racket involved in the misappropriation of funds worth crores of rupees deposited in the banks through cloned cheques, an official said on Monday.

A member of the gang was arrested from Balaghat area of Madhya Pradesh on April 26. The accused was identified as Pomesh Tembhare of Kirnapur in Balaghat district. Tembhare, brought to Odisha on transit remand following a local court's order at Balaghat, was produced before the OPID court, Balasore on Monday.

The EOW busted the racket while investigating a case registered on the allegations of Sujata Kanungo, Chief Manager, Bank of India's Baripada branch in Mayurbhanj district.

Kanungo complained about illegal transactions of Rs 9,56,76,600 from the account of District Mineral Foundation Trust of Zilla Parishad, Mayurbhanj maintained through the production of four cheques on April 10 and 18.

"During the investigation, it was learnt that the fraudsters, by producing forged or cloned cheques, managed to transfer Rs 9,56,76,600 to two different accounts in the name of PT Constructions & Supplier maintained with Bank of Maharashtra and SK Enterprises maintained with Punjab & Sind Bank. It was also found that the amount was further diverted to many other accounts from the accounts of PT Constructions & Supplier and S K Enterprises," an EOW source said.

The police also ascertained that more than Rs 2.68 crore out of the total Rs 9.56 crore has been transferred to the account of PT Constructions & Suppliers, the firm owned by Tembhare.

The Raipur-based firm is a sham one and created only for the fraud.

EOW team with the help of local police and CAPF nabbed the accused from his hideout in the Maoist-hit village of Balaghat.

"The accused is a member of a larger gang having complex network in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Odisha. They have been doing these scams for at least 4 years. They have been doing it through well planned and meticulous methods from cheque cloning to multi-layering of money transfers, creation and operations of multiple mule bank accounts, withdrawal of money, information network, local touts etc.," added the EOW source.

The police have reportedly blocked Rs 5,04,06,900 and frozen Rs 13,56,948 deposited in 33 accounts out of the total amount withdrawn illegally.

(IANS)

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