BHOPAL: A woman accused of allegedly cheating the State Bank of India (SBI) in Bengaluru of Rs 8 crore between 2002 and 2005 has been traced and arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, nearly two decades later.Back in 2006, the CBI registered a case against a Bengaluru-based couple, RM Shekhar and Mani M Shekhar, who were the managing director of Indo Marks Private Limited and director of Indo Marks Private Limited and BTC Home Products Private Limited, respectively.The couple was accused of allegedly cheating the SBI Overseas Branch, Bengaluru, to the tune of Rs 8 crore through the misuse of non-fund-based limits in the name of Indo Marks Private Limited and its sister concerns.The CBI charge-sheeted them in December 2007, but the couple allegedly failed to join the trial or respond to multiple summons and warrants, after which they were declared proclaimed offenders by the designated CBI court in February 2009.The CBI tried extensively to trace them, but they remained untraceable, leading the agency to announce a reward of Rs 50,000 each for any information leading to their arrest.While other co-accused were tried and either convicted or acquitted in the case, the trial against the absconding couple remained pending.A sustained investigation by the CBI revealed that the couple had allegedly changed identities and never used their old KYC details. While RM Shekhar assumed the identity of Krishna Kumar Gupta, his wife Mani M Shekhar allegedly began living as Geetha Krishna Kumar Gupta. The couple had also changed their mobile phone numbers, email IDs, PAN numbers and all other information that had been used prior to the 2007 charge sheet.Based on specific intelligence inputs, the CBI leveraged the advanced analytical capabilities of image search tools to trace the digital footprints of the absconding accused. The image comparison and analysis tools led to the identification of the two individuals living under their assumed identities in Indore, Madhya Pradesh.“With photo matching levels of more than 90%, the image search tools enabled accurate identification despite their assumed identities,” a CBI official said.Acting on this identification, a CBI team, after meticulous field verification, successfully traced the accused to Indore, where they had been residing under their new names.Subsequent search operations revealed that RM Shekhar had died in 2008, a year after being charge-sheeted by the CBI and a year before he and his wife were declared proclaimed offenders by the court. He had been living under the identity of Krishna Kumar Gupta.Co-accused Mani M Shekhar, now known as Geetha Krishna Kumar Gupta, was finally arrested on 12 July and subsequently produced before the court in Bengaluru, which remanded her to judicial custody for further trial proceedings.
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