Bank employee in Karnataka swindles Rs 2.36 crore to play online gambling games, held
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A 28-year-old assistant manager of a bank in the Haveri town of Karnataka has been arrested for swindling Rs 2.36 crore of depositors to play gambling games online. The district police have handed over the case to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) as the amount cheated is more than Rs 2 crore.
The arrested has been identified as Viresh Kashimath, a resident of Haveri town who worked as an assistant manager at ICICI bank.
According to a police officer, the incident came to light when ICICI bank manager Devadhar Lade approached the Haveri town police recently and reported a loss of Rs 2.36 crore.
The bank which had conducted an internal investigation found Kashimath could transfer Rs 5 lakh per day to those accounts which were necessary for banking operations. However, Kashimath had been frequently transferring money to a friend Mahantheshaiah P Hiremath’s account since August last year. This went unnoticed for several months but recently, authorities at the bank found a huge sum of money missing when the auditing of the branch was being conducted.
“Upon inquiry, it was found that Kashimath had been transferring money to Hiremath and using the same money to play online gambling games. There were many days where he transferred Rs 5 lakh and the bank officials got to know about it only on February 7,” a police officer said.
“Kashimath was addicted to online games and started siphoning money from customers. He played online games such as Rummy and others. When we arrested Kashimath, we managed to recover Rs 32 lakh cash from him,” the officer added.
Haveri Superintendent of Police Shivakumar told the media the case has been transferred to CID as it involves more than Rs 2 crore cheating and they will probe the case further.
The Haveri police had registered a case under sections 406 (criminal breach of trust), 409 (Criminal breach of trust by public servant, or by banker, merchant or agent) and 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the accused is presently in judicial custody.
