Bhubaneswar, Feb 5: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Odisha Police on Wednesday arrested a couple in a Rs 1.3 crore bank fraud case, said a senior EOW official.

The accused couple identified as Ashirbad Pattnaik and his wife Manogyan Pattnaik were nabbed from the Patia area in Bhubaneswar.

The EOW sleuths apprehended the couple on the basis of a complaint lodged by Sushant Nayak, the regional head of the Financial Crime Prevention Group, ICICI Bank.

As per the complaint, accused Ashirbad, had availed a loan of Rs 3.79 crore from the local branch of a public sector bank in the name of his farm, “AB Solutions” located at Jaydev Vihar area of the city in January 2018.

He had mortgaged two flats and one duplex registered in the name of accused Ashirbad and Manogyan to avail loan from PSU bank.

“While the above loans were running, again in the month of October 2018, both the accused persons availed the loan of Rs1.05 crore against the above said properties vide three loan accounts from ICICI Bank, Link Road Branch in Cuttack by producing forged documents,” said a senior EOW official.

The accused Ashirbad also during the pendency of the above loans with the private bank, sold one of the mortgaged flats standing exclusively in his name to one Leena Appicatlaa under the sale deed by doing the internal balance transfer of the loan in favour of Leena.

The fraud committed by the couple came to the fore when the PSU Bank legally proceeded to take possession of the mortgaged flat sold to Leena following default in repayment of the loan amount.

The PSU later also took possession of two other remaining mortgaged properties. The ICICI Bank suffered a loss of Rs 1.3 crore due to the deceitful act of the accused persons who had perpetrated the fraud using forged documents.

The cops have also seized many incriminating documents like fake sale deeds, loan documents etc during the course of the investigation.

The accused couple was produced before the court in Cuttack that sent them to 14 days judicial custody. (IANS)

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