The Central Crime Branch (CCB) on Wednesday raided 14 places linked to the Bengaluru-based Shushruti Souharda Sahakara Bank Niyamita as part of a probe into a multi-crore financial fraud, a senior police officer said.
Five people, including the bank’s founder-chairman N Srinivasa Murthy, have been arrested. Two women are among those arrested.
Fourteen teams of the CCB’s economic offences wing launched simultaneous search operations at the residences and houses of Murthy and 11 of his relatives and associates. The raids commenced in the morning and are still ongoing at some places, S D Sharanappa, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime 1), who spearheaded the operation, told DH.
Gold and silver articles, cash, property papers and documents related to loan transactions at the bank have been seized, Sharanappa said. He added that the value of the seized assets is being evaluated.
The co-op bank was founded in 1998 and has its head office on Andrahalli Main Road in Peenya, North Bengaluru. It has a banking licence from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and is also registered under the Karnataka Souharda Sahakari Act, 1997. It has branches at Wilson Garden, Sanjayanagar, Chikkalasandra and Chikkaballapur.
The bank offered customers attractive returns of up to 9 per cent on investments. The Shushruti Jantha Nidhi scheme, for example, promised 9 per cent returns if Rs 4 lakh was invested for 12 months. A 13-month fixed deposit fetched an 8 per cent return, far higher than that offered by…
