Guwahati, Feb 9: The Assam CID (criminal investigation department) of Assam Police has filed a charge-sheet against two accused persons for fraudulently siphoning off Rs 2.57 crore from the official account of AMTRON, a state government undertaking, and transferring the funds to the bank account of a firm in Tamil Nadu.
The CID submitted the charge-sheet before the chief judicial magistrate’s court, Kamrup (Metro) here, an official statement informed on Wednesday.
A case (number 13/2021) was registered by the CID under Sections 120 B/420/406/409 of IPC, read with Section 66 D, of the Information Technology Act against Rahul Lochan Huzuri, assistant, finance and accounts department of AMTRON, and Shankar Anbalagan, the owner of M/s SRS Raw Material Traders of Salem, Tamil Nadu.
The firm in Tamil Nadu however did not have any business relations with AMTRON.
A team from the CID, Assam Police thereafter swung into action and through an online helpline number, 155260, immediately froze an amount of Rs 121,61,372 in the receiver’s account at the Salem branch of ICICI Bank.
“During investigation, it was revealed that the arrested accused, Huzuri, a contractual employee of AMTRON and the sole operator of the official e-mail account of AMTRON, had sent an email to the Bank of Maharashtra, Guwahati branch, Panbazar, instructing the bank to transfer the amount of Rs 2,57,07,578 to the third party who had no business relation with AMTRON,” it said.
“The evidence collected from the AMTRON office reveals that the accused Huzuri was solely in possession of the user ID and password of the said email account,” it said.
The CID team searched various places in Tamil Nadu and could unearth evidence related to the case.
Houses of the co-accused at Tamil Nadu were searched and documentary evidence was collected.
Anbalagan, who was in receipt of the money transacted fraudulently, was also arrested.
Several other bank accounts, which received the fraud amounts due to further transfer of money, have been identified and the accounts have been frozen.
“Continuous pressure and follow-up by the CID led to the recovery of Rs 213,89 498 from various banks and the money has been re-credited into the account of AMTRON maintained at Bank of Maharashtra, Panbazar here,” the statement said.
The search team is on the job in a bid to recover the remaining amount of Rs 38 lakh which has been withdrawn by cash in Tamil Nadu.
The recovery and immediate arrest of the accused was the result of swift action by the CID team which used the latest cyber forensic tools in tracing the online transactions and emails.