BHUBANESWAR: The economic offences wing (EOW) of the Odisha Crime Branch on Wednesday arrested two persons for allegedly embezzling Rs 5 crore government funds in Sonepur district in April this year.
The accused were identified as Rajkishore Nayak of Bhawanipatna in Kalahandi district and his uncle Ananta Charan Pradhan of Pipili in Puri district.
The accused fraudulently withdrew Rs 5.01 crore from the bank account of the zilla swasthya samiti in Sonepur on April 7 by hacking the public financial management system (PFMS) of the National Health Mission.
The chief district medical officer of Sonepur lodged a complaint with EOW last month after coming across the bank fraud.
“It was a difficult task for the EOW to make headway as they had to scrutinise over 5,000 IP addresses before pinning down Nayak, the mastermind.
During investigation we came to know that Nayak used to work as an accountant on a temporary basis with the National Health Mission in Sonepur from April 2016 to December 2020.
In March, he conspired with Pradhan and some others and hacked the National Health Mission’s PFMS.
He generated an e-cheque worth Rs 5.01 crore,” a senior EOW officer said.
Nayak currently works as an accountant with Swami Vivekananda National Institute of Rehabilitation Training and Research (SVNIRTAR) at Olatpur in Cuttack district.
After generating the e-cheque, the accused arranged duplicate stamps and seals of the chief district medical officer and additional district medical officer of Sonepur.
Nayak allegedly put the forged signatures of the concerned officers on the cheque and deposited it in the bank for clearance.
On April 7, the money was credited to the account of a company, named M/s Naturals.
“We had arrested M/s Naturals employee Samir Kumar Pati.
But we had not disclosed his arrest in the public as the main accused (Rajkishore Nayak) was on the run.
We have traced around Rs 3.30 crore that was transferred to different accounts.
These accounts have been frozen.
Efforts are on to retrieve the remaining amount,” the officer said.
The EOW strongly suspects the involvement of some others, including a few bank officials in the fraud.
“We are verifying whether the bank had flagged the concerned district officials about withdrawal of the huge money through the e-cheque,” the officer said.