Bhubaneswar, May 23 (IANS) The Odisha Police’s Economic Offences Wing (EOW) has arrested two more persons in connection with the multi-crore District Mineral Foundation Trust (DMFT) fund embezzlement case involving fraudulent withdrawal of more than Rs 9.56 crore from a Bank of India account in Mayurbhanj district, a senior EOW official said.

The accused, identified as Surjit Roy and Sameer Srivastav, proprietors of Roy Associates and SS Traders respectively, were arrested from Raipur in Chhattisgarh on May 21 in connection with the fraud case, the EOW official on Friday added.

The senior police official also revealed that the accused duo was produced before the local court in Raipur and later brought to Bhubaneswar on transit remand.

The accused were arrested in connection with the case originally registered at Bhanjapur police station in Mayurbhanj district following a complaint filed by Sujata Kanungo, the Chief Manager of Bank of India’s Baripada branch.

In the complaint, the Chief Manager alleged that fraudulent transactions amounting to Rs 9,56,76,600 were carried out from the DMFT account of the Mayurbhanj Zilla Parishad, maintained with Bank of India’s Baripda branch, using four forged cheques on April 10 and April 18, 2024.

The EOW officials during the course of investigation found that the saving account of Mayurbhanj Zilla Parishad is being maintained with Bank of India’s Baripada branch in the name of DMFT.

The officials also came to know that the fraudsters used cloned and forged cheques to transfer the funds worth Rs 9.56 crore into two different accounts in the name of PT Constructions and Supplier maintained with Bank of Maharashtra and S.K. Enterprises maintained with Punjab and Sindh Bank.

The money was subsequently diverted to multiple accounts across different states through layered transactions.

The EOW said that Rs 5.04 crore of the defrauded amount has been blocked, while Rs 13.56 lakh lying in 33 bank accounts has been frozen so far.

Investigators found that Rs 45.19 lakh and Rs 39.19 lakh were transferred from the account of PT Constructions and Supplier to Roy Associates of the accused Surjit and SS Traders of accused Sameer respectively.

“These accused persons are member of a larger gang having complex networking in different states like Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Odisha. After his arrest, EOW has got important clues about the entire gang. They are doing these scams for last four years,” the official said.

Earlier, four other accused involved in the multi-crore fraud case had been arrested by the EOW sleuths.

–IANS

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