Three who looted Rs 79 cr with cancelled bank cheques caught while fleeing

The trio were in hiding since August 2015 when they disappeared after illegally withdrawing Rs 1.5 crore from an account. The illegal transaction resulted in the police launching a manhunt for the three and the money was recovered from a car parked at the Suryapet bus station in the Nalgonda district of Telangana on the same day but the three remained elusive.

Police who last week received information that the main accused Jonalagadda was trying to flee the country on a fake Nepal passport arrested the suspect at Sanauli, a border village. Based on Jonalagadda’s information the two others were also tracked down and arrested. Investigations have revealed that the trio pulled out nearly Rs 79 crore from the bank accounts of individuals and institutions in Vijayapura over a period of time using cancelled cheques.

The Vijayapura police had taken up a case of cheating against the two ICICI bank officials based on a complaint lodged by a regional manager of the bank. The case was later handed over to the Karnataka CID. The three accused were also wanted in three criminal cases registered in Vijayapura, police have found.

“The accused persons robbed account holders by encashing cancelled cheques. They cheated the Bijapur District Co-operative Bank to the tune of Rs 30 crore, the Siddeshwara co-op bank of Rs 1.65 crore, the NHAI of Rs 13.45 crore, a Kirana Merchants Association of Rs 2.25 crore, the Vijayapura City Corporation of Rs19.25 crores, the Water Supply Board, Vijayapura of Rs 4 crore and the SBI of Rs 7.60 crore,” a CID official said.

The accused Vijayasarathi purchased a house in Vijayapura, six acres of agricultural land in the Dakshina Kannada district, and a house worth Rs two crore in JP Nagar, Bangalore in his own name and that of his girlfriend in addition to buying two acres of agricultural land in the name of his girlfriend’s brother.

The other bank official Sachin Patil bought 3.5 acres of land in Sankeshwar in north Karnataka and 1.25 acres land in Vijayapura. The CID has also seized Rs.1.5 crore in cash, six luxury cars and Rs 51 lakh that was in the bank account of Renuka Shetty, CID inspector general of police Hemanth Nimbalkar said.