New India Co-operative Bank Case: Accused Surrenders, Six Arrests So Far

The economic offences wing of Mumbai Police arrested on Sunday an accused in the Rs 122-crore embezzlement at New India Co-operative Bank, an official said.

Arunachalam Ullahanathan Maruthuvar (62), who had been absconding for the past month, surrendered at the EOW office in south Mumbai in the morning. He was produced in a court, which remanded him in police custody till Tuesday, the EOW official said.

This is the sixth arrest in the case.

According to police, Maruthuvar received nearly Rs 30 crore of the misappropriated funds from the prime accused Hitesh Mehta, the cooperative bank's former general manager and head of accounts.

The anti-financial crime unit on Friday arrested accused and civil contractor Kapil Dedhia from Vadodara in Gujarat. A court remanded him in police custody till March 19. Police said Rs 12 crore of the embezzled fund was credited to his account.

According to the police, Rs 122 crore was siphoned off from the safes of New India Cooperative Bank’s Prabhadevi and Goregaon offices in Mumbai.

Besides the arrest of six persons, a few more individuals have also been named as accused, including the bank's former chairman Hiren Bhanu and his wife, ex-vice-chairperson Gauri Bhanu, who fled abroad just before the scam came to light.