Five people have been detained by the CBI in connection with an alleged theft of Rs 31.50 crore, including two retired officials from the Bank of Baroda and the Rail Land Development Authority (RLDA), according to officials on Monday.
According to the officials, the agency brought the four suspects, including former RLDA manager Vivek Kumar, former Bank of Baroda branch manager Jaswant Rai, and three private citizens Gopal Thakur, Hitesh Karelia, and Nilesh Bhatt, before a special court, which remanded them to judicial detention.
The RLDA had filed a complaint with the CBI, stating that unidentified individuals had caused it to lose Rs 31.50 crore.
“It was alleged that the RLDA had initially invested an amount of Rs 35 crore (approx) for one year in the form of fixed deposit (FD) at Bank of Baroda, Vishwas Nagar branch, Shahdra, Delhi and thereafter the maturity proceeds were supposed to be re-invested, for a period of three months,” a CBI spokesperson said.
According to him, the bank allegedly only invested Rs 3.50 crore, and the rest Rs 31.50 crore was secretly syphoned to several shell firms by bank employees, RLDA officials, and private citizens. The money was taken via forging letters and advisory that appeared to have been sent by RLDA representatives.
“Searches were earlier conducted at 12 different places, including Delhi, Mumbai, Goa and Himachal Pradesh,” said a spokeswoman.
