more-in The Central Crime Branch police arrested four persons, including a former manager of Karnataka Bank for swindling public money to the tune of ?20.55 crore by pledging spurious gold in the name of account holders. The fraud was detected by officials of the bank following a recent inspection at the bank branch in Anna Nagar-West Extension. The accused had opened accounts in the name of 180 individuals under a Central scheme. The branch manager V.K. Murthy lodged a complaint with the Commissioner of Police, A.K. Viswanathan. Following his instructions, CCB officers led by Assistant Commissioner D. Venkatesan arrested Sriram, 39, of Red Hills, K. Padmanabhan, 64, of Ponneri, S. Punniakodi, 69, of Tirumangalam and V. Suraj, 44, of Anna Nagar. Police said that Sriram ran a jewellery shop in Red Hills. In collusion with his manager Padmanabhan, he joined hands with the then appraiser of the bank Punniakodi. With the help of bank managers — Vasantha Senai and Suraj— they opened new bank accounts in the name of 180 individuals under a new scheme brought by the Central government. They deposited ?1000 each in on their accounts. While opening accounts, they obtained signatures of account holders along with loan documents for pledging gold jewellery. Without the any knowledge of to the accountholders, Sriram and others pledged spurious gold in the bank and obtained 325 gold loans totalling ?20.55 crore.

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