Cops arrest bank staffer, kin for 1.3cr locker theft
Times of India | 12 January 2025
123 Kolkata: An employee of a nationalised bank in charge of a vault at a prime branch on Park Street allegedly emptied ornaments. valued at Rs 1.3 crore, from a customer's locker, purchased an SUV, fitted it with a blue beacon and roamed around the city and also opened a company. The employee, Moumita Si, and her brother, Mithun, were arrested on Friday after a month-long probe.
Police are also probing a similar complaint at the very bank branch involving valuables worth a higher amount.
On Dec 14, Sashi Pasari, a customer of Indian Bank's Park Street branch, lodged a complaint and named Moumita, along with others, in the FIR, saying they hatched a criminal conspiracy and committed criminal breach of trust by misappropriating gold and diamond jewellery, worth Rs 1.3 crore kept in her locker. All the contents had disappeared when Pasari went to check it in early Dec.
Police suspected an inside hand as it was impossible for an outsider to access the heavily fortified vault, open a box, take out the contents and lock it again. A surveillance on the bank accounts of prime suspect Moumita and her brother revealed huge transactions, including cash deposits, purchase of gold, high-end cars and electronic gadgets. The two had also opened a company, police said.
Police discovered that Moumita and Mithun had bought an SUV and put a blue beacon on it. Teams of the anti-bank fraud section of DD conducted searches at different places to recover Rs 30 lakh in cash, gold jewellery worth Rs 56 lakh (748 gm), two high-end phones, worth Rs 3 lakh, four more mobiles, and bank and business documents from the Sis' Kasba and Lake Town residences. "We arrested the siblings on Friday from their home on Jagannath Ghosh Road in Kasba," said CP (crime & traffic) Rupesh Kumar.
Police said probe was underway in another case at the same branch, involving missing locker contents, worth several crores. A probe is on to check if Moumita was involved in this case as well.
Police asked the bank to inform all customers to check their lockers and also sought a list of officials in charge of lockers over the past two years there. Cops are checking how Moumita gained access to the locker's second key, kept with customers. Usually, two keys — the customer's and that of the bank — are required to be inserted and turned at the same time to open the locker.