Here group employees from the Mumbai office of Employees Provident Fund Organisation have allegedly drawn off Rs 21 crores from PF pool through deceitful withdrawals, a media report said.
The transactions were carried out between March 2020 and June 2021 when the “mastermind” of the scam is Chandan Kumar Sinha, a 37-year-old clerk at the EPFO’s Kandivali office allegedly used 817 bank accounts, mostly of migrant workers to fraudulently withdraw Rs 21.5 crores, the report added. Sinha is now absconding.“No individual PF account has been misused (in the fraud). The money belonged to the pooled fund and it is a loss to EPFO, not any individual. It is the equivalent of a bank robbery,” a senior official told The media.
Following the preceding finding in the probe, the bank accounts have been frozen and over Rs 2 crores have been tracked.“The probe has found that a few section officers at the branch actively helped Sinha siphon funds. It is a bit embarrassing that some of our officials gave their passwords to him and did not bother to change them later. This is negligence,” another senior official told the media.
“He knew the audit processes well, and exploited grey areas in the accounting process used by the EPFO to avoid detection,” an official added. Four other employees have been suspended for alleged involvement in the fraud. Following the completion of the internal audit, the case may be handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
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