Coins worth Rs 11 crore went missing from SBI’s Karauli branch in Rajasthan. CBI has since then raided 25 locations across Delhi, Jaipur, Udaipur and Dausa.
Officials said Friday that the CBI searched 25 locations on Thursday in connection with a case in which coins worth Rs 11 crore went missing from the vaults of an SBI branch in Karauli, Rajasthan.
The raids were carried out at the homes of approximately 15 former bank officials and others in Delhi, Jaipur, Dausa, Karauli, Sawai Madhopur, Alwar, Udaipur, and Bhilwara.
The matter became known after a preliminary investigation revealed a discrepancy in the cash reserve at the State Bank of India (SBI) branch in Mehandipur, Karauli district, in August 2021.
Alarmed bank officials hired a Jaipur-based private vendor to count coins worth Rs 13 crore, according to account books.
To their surprise, the vendor discovered only 3,000 bags containing coins worth approximately Rs 2 crore, while over Rs 11 crore in coins were missing from the branch.
The employees of the private vendor who were doing the counting were also allegedly threatened in the night of August 10, 2021 at the guesthouse where they were staying and asked to stop counting, according to the FIR. SBI had approached the Rajasthan High Court seeking a CBI probe into the matter because the missing amount was greater than Rs 3 crore, the threshold for seeking a probe by the agency.
The CBI has taken over the FIR previously registered by the Rajasthan Police on the orders of the high court.
