ADBL, remittance company robbed off Rs 475 million

UJJWAL SATYAL

Kathmandu, September 25

Police have arrested 12 persons for their involvement in robbery of over Rs 475 million from Agricultural Development Bank Limited and Panos Remit, a money transfer company based in Baneshwor.

The mastermind behind the heist, an African referred to as ‘Peter’, however, is still at large. He had hatched a plan to make away with over Rs 5 billion from the bank and the remittance company, according to police.

We have successfully foiled the attempt to rob billions of rupees and have recovered most of the money that was stolen,” Senior Superintendent of Police Sahakul Bahadur Thapa of Metropolitan Police Range, Teku, told journalists today.

The police got a tip-off about the robbery from employees of Panos Remit on September 22. That day two people had collected Rs 60,000 in six tranches. These people had produced ‘genuine’ unique identification numbers to collect the money and the remittance firm’s IT system had not flagged any warning, police said. Yet staffers of the remittance firm were suspicious because Rs 1.2 million had already been collected in tranches of Rs 60,000 in the past few days. So, at around 3:00pm they called the police and reported the incident.

Cops in plainclothes were immediately mobilised to the remittance company, leading to the arrest of one person who was there to collect another tranche of Rs 60,000. He implicated one of his relatives, Lawang Tamang, 43, of Nuwakot. Tamang was rounded up at around 10:00 pm that day from Nuwakot.

Police were presuming that Tamang may have collected a few hundred thousand rupees from the remittance company. But on interrogation they came to know that Tamang was in possession of Rs 3.1 million. This revelation provided them a clue to another robbery that was taking place at ADBL.

Tamang told police that an African national referred to as ‘Peter’ had asked him to open an account at ADBL. ‘Peter’ also told him to gather as many people and make them open accounts in ADBL, promising commission of 15 to 35 per cent on the amount transferred to their accounts.

Tamang had convinced at least nine persons to open accounts at ADBL’s branch offices in nine locations, including Balaju, New Road and Kailali. ‘Peter’, according to police, had transferred Rs 473.96 million from ADBL’s Lahan branch office to these accounts.

It is not exactly known how Peter transferred money to ADBL accounts, but he had used genuine user ID and passwords to penetrate the ADBL’s system and make the transfers, according to ADBL Deputy General Manager Dirgha Aryal.

The bank’s IT system does not process fund transfer requests without getting approval from at least two of its staff. “We do not know how the robber was able to breach the security… We have formed a four-member internal committee for further investigation,” said Aryal, requesting customers not to panic as robber had stolen money from the bank’s treasury and not from depositors’ accounts.

Police are trying to find out if bank officials were involved in the robbery. But it has not arrested any ADBL employee so far.

Of the amount that was transferred to accounts created by accomplices of ‘Peter’, Rs 5.1 million was withdrawn from ADBL’s accounts, of which Rs 1.5 million was moved to Kailash Development Bank. “We have already recovered the entire Rs 5.1 million withdrawn from ADBL,” said SSP Thapa, adding, “In total, we have recovered Rs 6 million from those who were arrested.”

But it is not clearly known how much of Rs 1.2 million that was robbed from Panos Remit has been recovered, as police suspect some money may have been illegally remitted to India.

Police, so far, have arrested Shubankar Panja, 30, a permanent resident of Kolkata, for illegally transferring Rs 100,000 of the stolen money to India via hundi.

Lots of information about the robbery is still not known as police are unaware of Peter’s whereabouts and his nationality. Those who were arrested said he is based in Mumbai. They also said he had lived in Nepal for quite some time and could fluently speak Nepali and Hindi. Police have come to know that ‘Peter’ used to communicate with his accomplices in Nepal via WhatsApp. “We are looking for ways to trace him,” said SSP Thapa.

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The arrested dozen

• Labang Tamang, 43, of Nuwakot
• Sanjay Ghale, 26, of Tarkeshwar Municipality, Kathmandu
• Laxmi Lama Tamang, 40, Nirmala Tamang, 20, and Nima Tamang, 18, of Naukunda Rural Municipality, Rasuwa
• Pushparaj Khadka, 42, of Hariban Municipality, Sarlahi
• Bidyasagar Lamichhane, 23, of Dordi Rural Municipality, Lamjung
• Shravan Kumar Shrestha, 38, of Bhanu Municipality, Tanahun
• Sunita Shrestha, 32, of Thimi Municipality, Bhaktapur
• Shubankar Panja, 30, of Kolkata, India
• Bijay Sah, 22, and Chandara Bahadur Budha, 45, of Bhajani Municipality, Kailali