Ahmedabad: ED raids 19 locations across state in five cases of ‘financial fraud’ at post offices

As a result of the searches, the ED seized an amount to the tune of Rs 1 crore (approx). Further, details of various immovable properties exceeding Rs 1.5 crore have been recovered.

In one case, the accused sub postmasters, in conspiracy with others, allegedly fraudulently reopened 606 Recurring Deposits (RD) accounts that had earlier been closed, and then fraudulently closed them, thereby, misappropriating government money amounting to Rs 18.60 crore, as per the officials.

In the second case, the accused, while working as sub postmaster at Mengni Sub Post Office, Gondal Division in Rajkot, entered into criminal conspiracy with others and committed misappropriation of government money amounting Rs 9.97 crore between October 16, 2019 and November 21, 2022. The accused public servant allegedly adopted the modus operandi of manually uploading fake payments through the utility tool — SAP (Departmental Software) in Daily Transaction Report of Mengni Sub Office in the head of old Kisan Vikas Patra (KVP) principal amount and old KVP interest amounts.

In the third case, Recurring Deposit (RD) accounts of Ravalwadi post office in Bhuj, Kutch, once closed, were allegedly again closed twice or thrice with higher denomination and in names of different depositors, by creating fraudulent closure documents. Instead of depositing the accepted amount, the accused diverted the closure amounts of fraudulent RD accounts to new accounts under various schemes by mentioning “re-investment” on forged RD closure forms, officials added.
In the Ravalwadi case, as per the ED statement, another technique of cheating customers was that the accused used to accept deposits from their customers for opening of new accounts, issue passbooks to them by reusing old passbook/ new fake passbook but in fact they didn’t open any account in their names in Sanchay post (FINACLE) system.

In the fourth case, the accused, who was the then Sub postmaster of Surajkuji Sub Post Office of Jamnagar Division, allegedly knowingly used forged documents as genuine, for the purpose of pecuniary advantage and thereby, misappropriated government money, causing wrongful loss to the Post Offices to the tune of Rs 2 .94 crore. In a fifth case, the accused – Savings Bank Postal Assistant at the Chotila Sub Post Office, LSG Postal Assistant at the Surendranagar Head Post Office, and Sub Post Master in Chotil — entered into a criminal conspiracy and allegedly misappropriated funds from various type of postal deposit accounts causing wrongful loss to the Post Offices to the tune of Rs 1.57 crore.

Further investigation is underway.