A significant financial fraud, involving the alleged siphoning of Rs 2.03 crore from a state tourism department's account, has come to light in Ahmedabad, leading to the suspension of a bank manager and the filing of a formal police complaint.
Complaint Details and Accused Named
On Friday, K R Nagraj (50), the deputy regional manager at Union Bank of India's Gandhinagar office, lodged a formal complaint with the police. The complaint names Himanshu Jadon, the former branch manager of the bank's Kudasan branch, and Ritesh Sheth, the account holder of Trueway Traders, as the primary accused.
The case has been registered under multiple sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), including charges of criminal breach of trust, cheating, forgery, and criminal conspiracy.
How the Fraud Was Executed
The sequence of events, as detailed in the complaint, began when Nagraj received an alert from the deputy general manager in Hyderabad on December 2 about suspicious activity at the Kudasan branch. An investigation revealed that a savings account belonging to the Tourism Corporation of Gujarat Limited (TCGL) was activated on November 17.
Shortly after activation, a sum of Rs 2.03 crore was transferred via the RTGS system to the account of Trueway Traders, a private entity. Following the transfer, the TCGL account was immediately closed, raising immediate red flags.
When confronted, branch manager Himanshu Jadon initially claimed ignorance but promised to resolve the issue. He presented a letter supposedly from TCGL requesting the activation of the 'Navratri Festival-2003' account, complete with signatures of two officers and copies of Aadhaar cards. However, the letter lacked Aadhaar numbers, and the crucial RTGS slip was missing from the branch records.
Suspension and Recovery Attempts
Jadon was suspended in December for his involvement in these illegal activities. Meanwhile, Ritesh Sheth, when contacted, also first claimed he was unaware of the transaction but promised to return the money. He allegedly transferred Rs 12 lakh to an account in Dhanalakshmi Bank through multiple transactions and deposited Rs 24.50 lakh on December 5. However, no further repayments were made thereafter.
The complaint clearly states, "It was later discovered that the Gujarat govt's funds were transferred to a private trader's account, implicating branch manager Jadon in the process, leading to his suspension."
Forged Documents and Pre-Planned Conspiracy
Further digital forensic investigation uncovered that on December 4, Jadon had emailed a file named ‘N P Thakar’ to his personal email address. This file contained a TCGL letter and two ID proofs, but the letter did not carry the department's official seal.
A second letter, dated November 26 and described as a final closure letter, did bear the tourism department's round seal. However, when bank officials took both letters to TCGL's Gandhinagar office for verification, authorities confirmed they were completely fake and bore forged signatures.
TCGL officials confirmed that no such letter was ever issued by the corporation to activate or deactivate any account, and the department had not received any such funds. Nagraj's complaint suggests that Jadon and Sheth pre-planned the entire operation, even using a new mobile number to update TCGL's account details in the bank's core system to facilitate the fraud.
The police are now investigating the case to trace the remaining funds and establish the full extent of the conspiracy.
