Kathmandu. 4 women bankers have been found to have embezzled millions of rupees from depositors of Sindhu Bikas Bank. A gang of Alisha Shrestha, Nitika Shrestha and Aspana Shrestha were found to have embezzled millions of rupees from depositors in the main design of the bank’s branch manager Ruksa Shrestha. Police have arrested Ruksa Shrestha, Aspana Shrestha and Alisha Shrestha for investigation. The police have issued a warrant against him.

She went from Relationship Manager and Operations Manager to Manager of the Bank. In the meantime, he was doing business with a person named Padam Pradhan. Padam Pradhan has been found to be a person who has faced many cases of banking fraud. Pradhan Shrestha, who was a gold merchant by profession, used to take money from him and used to run it. For this, Pradhan also paid high interest to Shrestha. When the interest rate was high, Ruksa Shrestha used to take money from the customers who came to the bank, stamped and signed the voucher, but kept the money herself without keeping it in the depositor’s account. She showed the money to Padam Pradhan. Most of the customers who use money in this way are ordinary people and their relatives. She used to tempt her to meet her directly and deposit the money so that she could get good interest. His relatives and other depositors, tempted by his temptation, did not go to the counter but met him directly and gave him money. Ruxa wrote on the back of their cheque book that the money was so much. Someday, if money had to be withdrawn or interested, the depositors would go back to Ruxa. She checked the accounts she kept and the accounts kept in their cheque books and showed them their interest and the money they needed. In this way, Ruksa used millions of depositors’ money without entering the bank system. By the time the case came to light, the amount of embezzlement in his design had reached Rs 3.75 crore.

One day, a customer from Barhabise, came to the head office of the bank and claimed that the money he had kept in the bank was not in the account. The bank looked at the money in his account, but there was no money. The bank asked him for a deposit voucher. He said he would send the voucher if it was lost or where it was. The bank took the case lightly, thinking that there was no voucher and there was no money in the account. “Rest assured, if you have a voucher, your money won’t go anywhere, the bank is a safe place,” he said.

The customer sent a voucher for the amount he had deposited in the bank. The bank staff was surprised when it was found that the voucher was genuine, but the money was not in his account as mentioned in the voucher. The bank then conducted an internal investigation into the matter. A team of the bank reached the Barhabise branch and conducted an internal investigation and found not only the amount of the voucher but also the fraud in many places. The bank said it was investigating the matter further and found that there was misconduct by its employees. During the internal investigation of the bank after about 3 months, it was found that there was extreme misconduct by its own employees in the bank.

Other employees of the bank, Alisha Shrestha Basnet, Nitika Shrestha and Aspana Shrestha were also found to be involved in Ruxa’s mischief. In this way, it was found through internal investigation that other employees also took the customer’s money, did not show it in the system, and used the money in other places. It was even found that the bank employees had allowed her husband to use the depositors’ money.

They had bank deposit vouchers, but they had no money in their accounts. In this way, the bank was preparing to file a case against them after it was found that they had embezzled a lot of money with the connivance of the bank employees. But earlier, the bank, which had experienced the experience of not collecting money in the case of a multi-crore scam in the Dolalghat branch of the bank, made a strategy to raise money first. The bank called its employees and those involved in money laundering and threatened to pay the money, otherwise they would file a police case. Those who embezzled money for fear of being caught by the police paid some money. Some paid by selling land, some paid by selling cars. But the bank could not collect all the money, because their money was also invested elsewhere.

The bank should have taken the help of the police as soon as the case came to know about it. However, the bank did not do so, saying that if the police were immediately informed, everyone would be taken into custody and the depositor’s money would also be trapped. Padam Pradhan and Ruksa Shrestha’s husband Basu Shrestha escaped from the police. Police are searching for them but have not been able to find them. Meanwhile, Padam Pradhan, who is also a gold trader, said that he was ready to pay the money but needed some time. He had deposited Rs 12 lakh in the bank on the same day. However, as the number of depositors coming to the bank saying that their money was lost, the bank could not bear the pressure and lodged a complaint with the police. Police initially arrested Roksa Shrestha on June 9 after filing a complaint with the police. After that, other employees were also arrested. Police also arrested Raj Bhai Shrestha, husband of Aspana Shrestha. Another employee of the bank, Nitika Shrestha, also absconded after she came to know that her friends had been arrested. Police have issued warrants against the absconding.

Out of the 5 employees, one was found not involved in the incident and the bank lodged a complaint with the police. During the internal investigation conducted by the bank, it has been found that Ruksa Shrestha is the biggest hand in this scam, Padam Pradhan and her husband have embezzled most of the money and the rest of the employees are also involved in misappropriation of money. Out of the total scam, Rs 1.44 crore is yet to be recovered. However, after the case was over, other depositors also came with complaints and all of them were forwarded to the Chautara police, said Information Officer Giri.

Earlier, there was a scam of millions of rupees in collusion with the employees of the bank at the Dolalghat branch of the bank. The bank employees involved in the scam are now in jail. Even at that time, it was found that they were taking money from the customer, putting it in the system, but not depositing the money. Later, the bank came to know about the case and lodged a complaint with the police, after which the police arrested the employees of the Dolalghat branch. The other employees were later released and the main accused in the incident was sent to jail. The fact that millions of rupees have been scammed time and again in a bank with a small branch network has raised questions about the security of the bank. Watch the video below to know about the scam that took place at the Dolalghat branch of the same bank: