Three female employees from the State Bank of India (SBI) in Bhubaneswar were arrested over a huge loan fraud totaling ₹13.92 crore. The Crime Branch's Economic Offences Wing stepped in after the SBI Regional Manager filed a formal complaint on May 5. Turns out, these bank officials worked closely with external brokers and other staff to pull off an elaborate scam.

The arrested staff are Baishakhi Saha, Sarita Paikaray, and Charubala Dandasena as reported by The New Indian Express. Saha was Assistant Manager, handling credits and NPAs at the Regional Business Office-II. Paikaray and Dandasena had worked as Branch Manager and Service Manager at the Damana Square branch, but both were already suspended before police took action.

Investigators found that the fraud ran for 18 months-from May 2022 to November 2023. In that time, they cleared and distributed 282 personal loans under SBI's 'Xpress Credit' scheme. The operation stretched across four city branches. Rail Vihar saw the worst of it with 150 fake loans, Fortune Tower wasn't far behind with 115, and Damana and Patia branches saw 9 and 8 fraudulent accounts respectively. The team pushed these loans through by deliberately skipping checks, approving fake profiles with fabricated employment histories, forged salary slips, tampered bank statements, and phony KYC documents. The applicants misrepresented themselves as top employees of Tata Steel, TPCODL, Vedanta.

Digging deeper, the EOW detailed how Baishakhi Saha, working at Rail Vihar, pushed through 143 fake Xpress Credit loans, siphoning off ₹6.22 crore with help from her branch head and outside agents. Paikaray and Dandasena abused their access at Damana Square to approve nine fraudulent loans, causing a loss of ₹30.17 lakh, altogether totalling ₹6.88 crore. Police say all this money went straight to applicants who didn't qualify and used bogus paperwork. Right now, the EOW is widening its investigation, looking for other bank employees and brokers caught up in the scheme.