EOW makes 8th arrest in New India Cooperative Bank case | Mumbai news

MUMBAI: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) has arrested a man from Jharkhand, identified as Rajeev Ranjan Pandey, 45, in the New India Cooperative Bank money siphoning case. This is the eight arrest in the case. The police said Pandey was a beneficiary and had received around ₹15 crore from the ₹122 crore that was siphoned from the bank.

“We picked him up him from Bokaro. Pandey’s role had emerged in the interrogation of an accused in the case, Unnathan Arunachalam,” said a senior police officer from EOW.

Unnanathan, a businessman dealing with solar panel, had received around ₹50 crore from the crime proceedings from the main accused, the GM, accounts, of the bank, Hitesh Mehta.

“Unnanathan paid around ₹15 crore to Pandey from that money,” said a police officer. “Pandey is into money doubling schemes. We are interrogating him to find out why he received the money.”

The police said they will carry out brain mapping on the main accused, Mehta, on March 28 at Kalina Forensic Laboratory after his lie detector test was flagged as “deceptive”.

The police also said that Haji Javed Azam, the younger brother of BJP’s former Maharashtra secretary Hyder Azam, who is arrested in the case, prima facie owns eight electronic stores in Bihar named as Digital Duniya.

Meanwhile, Gauri and Hiren Bhanu, the former chairpersons of the bank who are on the run, have claimed innocence and said through their counsel Sajjal Yadav that it was Hitesh Mehta who was the brain behind the scam.