Financial scam at card centre:

CID grills 14 bank employees

by Jayampathy JAYASINGHE

Fourteen employees of a card centre of a reputed private bank in Colombo were taken in for questioning by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) following a Rs. 263 million loss, Police Media Spokesman SSP Prishantha Jayakody told the Sunday Observer.

The fraud came to light when the bank lodged a complaint at the Criminal Investigation Department last year, regarding the loss incurred by the bank.

More employees of the bank will be grilled by the CID in the next few days, the spokesman said.

Sleuths investigating the fraud said that a private company dealing in information technology had provided the software package to the bank in 2011 to enable them to transfer money from abroad by using the Internet Payment Gateway facility.

Two Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) had entered into an agreement with the bank to transfer the money through the Internet Payment Gateway system to the country. Investigations revealed that of the total sum of money received by the NGOs - Rs. 152 million had been channelled to another account while Rs. 45 million was retained in the NGO’s bank account. This was brought to the notice of the local bank when the Bank of America through its subsidiary companies debited Rs. 8 lakhs to the local bank for the financial transaction.

Other employees of the bank allegedly linked to the racket have been questioned by the CID and statements of those who called at the bank to encash cheques from the NGO account were also recorded. Several bank ledgers pertaining to remittances from abroad and computers have been seized by the CID for further investigations.

The statements of several NGO officials have also been recorded in this connection. The suspects were detained on a detention order obtained by courts to probe the matter.