Jalna Merchant Bank scam: 3 more officials arrested

Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Jalna police has arrested three more officials of the Jalna Merchant Co-operative Bank in connection with a multi-crore loan fraud involving fake warehouse accounts, taking the total number of arrests in the case to 12.The arrested accused have been identified as Vikas Sharma (37), branch officer at Deulgaon Raja in Buldhana district; Sachin Bhalerao (50), passing officer at the New Mondha branch in Jalna; and Gopal Shinde (41), branch officer at Sillod in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar district. They were taken into custody on Thursday evening after evidence of their alleged involvement emerged during the investigation.The police said the trio was produced before the MPID court, which remanded them in three-day of police custody.The case, registered at the Chandanzira police station, initially pertained to an alleged fraud of Rs 23.3 crore involving 177 bogus loan accounts created in the names of warehouses using forged documents. However, investigators said the fraud amount has now escalated to Rs 53.2 crore as the probe progressed.Jalna superintendent of police Teghbir Singh Sandhu said the scale of misappropriation widened during the course of the investigation. EOW assistant inspector Mithun Ghuge indicated that more arrests are likely in the coming days.Earlier in the probe, the police had arrested alleged mastermind Raichand Sakharam Kurangal along with several associates, including Nileshwar Bhosale, Rameshwar Jadhav, Dnyaneshwar Jadhav, Sudhakar Thombre, Pravin Puri, Ganesh Sable, bank general manager Rajendra Toksha, and branch officer Natwar Dayma of the Bhokardan branch.