Bhubaneswar, May 10: Vigilance officials on Sunday arrested one Santosh Kumar Panda, former Senior Assistant of Chandbali Sub-Treasury in Bhadrak district and his five associates for their alleged involvement in Rs 8 crore financial fraud.
Panda was accused of masterminding a prolonged criminal conspiracy that resulted in the misappropriation of Rs 8,04,76,146 from the state exchequer between July 25, 2018 and May 4, 2023, said a Vigilance Directorate release.
The investigation revealed a sophisticated manipulation of the Integrated Financial Management System (IFMS), exploiting the trust-based digital workflow between clerks and authorizing officers. A genuine pension, gratuity, or Commutation of Value of Pension (CVP) bill is processed and paid to a real pensioner.
Prime accused Panda used to wait for five to six months after the genuine transaction was completed to avoid immediate detection. As many as 102 individual fraudulent bills were made to commit the fraud.
According to the Vigilance, accused Panda accessed the "Gratuity Payment Menu" on the IFMS Portal by using his official Login ID and Password. He re-entered the original Pension Payment Order (PPO) number and ID of the genuine pensioner. Instead of the pensioner's account, he generated a "Third-Party GPO (Govt. Pension Order) ID," diverting the funds to his associates.
The Sub-Treasury Officer, who is the approving authority, allegedly approved these bills using a separate login without verifying if the bill had already been paid or if the beneficiary details matched the original authority, the Vigilance communique stated.
Funds were funneled into 44 different bank accounts belonging to 37 private individuals, all of them the associates of main accused Panda.
Along with mastermind Panda, his five associates - Siba Shankar Samal, Deb Shankar Samal, Prafulla Kumar Rout, Sandip Kumar Mitra, and Abhay Kumar Panda – has been booked U/s 13(2) r/w 13(1)(a) Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Act, 2018/406/409/467/468/471/477/120-B IPC.
Further investigation is underway to identify and apprehend the other associates and officials involved in the illegal activity.
