Major post office fraud :-

Chennai: The enforcement directorate has begun prosecution proceedings in one of the biggest post office frauds reported in the state where Rs 1.5 cr­ore government mo­ney was gobbled up by five employees of a post off­ice in Dindigul district.

“We have attached a property in Vedansa­nd­ur village in Dindigul, worth over Rs 40 lakh, belo­nging to Shan­mu­gh­am, father of Karthika, a woman employee of the post office of the same village,” a enior officer from the enforcement dir­ectorate told this newspaper on Thursday.  The fraud surfaced three years ago when it was found that all five employees, including G. Varadarajan, Karthika and three others had colluded in siphoning off Rs 1.5 crore from the government exchequer.   They had manipulated the recurring deposit ac­c­ounts. “If you deposit Rs 500 every month as a recurring deposit, the staff shows it as Rs 5,500 and supporting documents are also created. At the time of withdrawal, the genuine depositor is given only his due, the rest of the money go­es into the pockets of the employees,” expl­a­in­ed the ED official wh­en asked about the modus operandi of the five em­ployees who managed to swindle such a huge am­ount while working in a post office in a small village.

Though the CBI pr­obed the case, they could not track the pattern in parking of the illegal funds.

Our investigation revealed that Shanm­ug­h­am had purchased pro­perty using the money generated by his daughter along with her colleagues, the official said. //deccanchronical.com//date 03.01.2014.