Mastermind of Rs 120 crore fraud at AKTU posed as a banker

LUCKNOW: Police have revealed that the accused on the run in the Rs 120 crore fraud case at APJ Abdul Kalam Technical University (AKTU), identified as Anurag Srivastava, was the mastermind.
Srivastava posed as an official of a nationalised bank’s Jankipuram branch to gain the trust of AKTU’s finance officer, facilitating the transfer of Rs 120 crore to the university’s fake account at the bank’s Vidhan Sabha marg branch.
The police found that Srivastava had previously forged a letter on the AKTU vice-chancellor’s letterhead, instructing the bank’s Jankipuram branch officers to open an account in the university’s name at the Vidhan Sabha marg branch. From there, the funds were transferred to a Gujarat-based charitable trust. However, before the gang could withdraw the money, the bank officers detected suspicious activity and halted further transactions.
A senior officer involved in the investigation said that interrogation of the arrested accused revealed that the plan to siphon off the money had been in the works for the past two months.
“Anurag first gained the confidence of Shailesh Kumar Raghuvanshi of Mahanagar (arrested), who had held an account in the same bank branch for the past 12 years, to provide details of the manager and the account with the highest transactions,” the officer stated.
Srivastava even conducted a dry run of the entire operation before executing the final fraud. Another officer added that when Anurag learned that branch manager Anuj Saxena would be out of town in the first week of June, he seized the opportunity.
“Posing as branch manager Anuj Saxena, Anurag entered the AKTU office and met the finance officer, offering a 7.7% rate on fixed deposits, urging him to make investments soon at their branch,” the officer said. Later, Anurag reached the branch with a fake authority letter from the AKTU VC, and posing as AKTU’s finance officer NK Singh, transferred the amount to another account created using fake details and AKTU’s email ID.
“To appear legitimate, Anurag also called the branch manager, who was on leave, to inform him about his visit and ensure hassle-free arrangements,” the police added. The following day, they transferred Rs 49 crore, Rs 49 crore and Rs 22 crore to the Vidhan Sabha marg branch from the Jankipuram branch. Subsequently, the money was transferred to Shraddha Education Charitable Trust in Gujarat, linked to Joshi Devendra Prasad Prabhashankar (now arrested). Due to the absence of KYC compliance, the bank detected the foul play and requested the Gujarat bank to stop the payment.
DCP East Prabal Pratap Singh said that the fraudsters obtained the bank’s email ID by contacting the branch manager who was on vacation. They sent a fake letter to the Jankipuram branch, where AKTU holds an account, requesting the transfer of funds to AKTU’s FD account at the Vidhan Sabha marg branch. “The miscreants had opened a fake FD account in the name of AKTU. They then transferred the money to a company’s account and withdrew around Rs 1 crore,” the DCP said.