Four arrested for siphoning off fixed deposits

Andhra Pradesh  Police today arrested four including a founder of a software firm and an assistant manager of a public sector bank on charge of siphoning off fixed deposits to the tune of Rs 55.47 crore belonging to the AP State Minorities Finance Corporation (APSMFC).

AP Police crime investigation department probed the case after a complaint by Minorities Welfare Department secretary M Dana Kishore. It arrested C Venkata Koti Saikumar, who is the alleged mastermind behind misappropriation of funds, besides an assistant manager of Vijay Bank's Raichur branch in Karnataka, Naveen Sagar, as well as two others identified as N Venkata Raman and B Kesava Rao. Koti Saikumar, who established a software company called Swal Computers at Begumpet where he alleged hatched a plan to siphon off fixed deposits of the AP State Minorities Finance Corporation and as part of the plan joined hands with one Venkata Raman, Additional Director General of Police (CID) S V Ramana Murthy said.

Both Saikumar and Venkata Raman approached Kesava Rao, who is a middleman in arranging fixed deposits for banks from various government organisations and requested him to arrange some fixed deposits for Vijaya Bank from AP State Minorities Finance Corporation, for which they said they would pay one per cent commission on the deposit amount, he said.

Accordingly, Kesava Rao arranged one fixed deposit for Rs 10 crores from APSMFC to Vijaya Bank. Later, Saikumar and Venkata Raman got Naveen Sagar to open a current account in Vijaya Bank under the name of AP State Minorities Finance Corporation by paying him an amount of Rs 10 lakhs, Murthy said.