Sakti: In Chhattarsal village of Sakti district of Chhattisgarh, six people conspired to pull off a daring fraud by opening a State Bank of India (SBI) branch in a record 10 days. This highly developed plan to steal from villagers by posing as a bank and intercepting their transactions – worked, convincing many it was the real thing and costing them lakhs of rupees. The fake branch inaugurated 250 Kms from Raipur was provided with Cash Counters, fake documents, and new furniture used for Cheating Purposes, which looked like a Real bank. In this respect, villagers were enticed to open accounts and perform transactions, and more citizens, who later became employed with the bank’s help, also thought that they had decent job offers.
The scam started after the manager of a genuine bank branch in Dabra selected SBI and became wary of a new branch in Chhapora. On the 27th of September, the police and officers from SBI arose to the fraudulent act as they raided the house. Senior police official Rajesh Patel revealed that three suspects have been identified: Rekha Sahu, Mandir Das, and Pankaj. These people, including the operation’s mastermind, fabricated IDs to get employment and other documents, including fake job titles and tutored the recruits on how to run a fake SBI branch. In a still more perversity, they demanded between 2-6 lakh rupees from the employees as a fee for getting what were assumed to be well-paying, permanent positions.
Out of them, Ajay Kumar Agarwal had sought to open an SBI kiosk at Chhapora and got alerted when this so-called SBI branch surfaced. He filed complaints with the legal SBI branch close by in Dabra. The branch managers could not find anything about branch code let alone the specific new branch which they had discovered, and were forced to call the police.
This audacious fraud, in which natives and workers were both fleeced, has elicited much surprise throughout the area.
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