The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Thursday carried out nationwide searches at 100 locations in separate alleged bank fraud cases of over Rs 3,700 crore, officials said.
The coordinated search operation was spread across 11 states and pertained to 30 FIRs related to bank fraud, they said.
"These searches are part of a special drive to book fraudsters on the complaints received from different nationalised banks in India. The complainant banks include Indian Overseas Bank, Union Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, Punjab National Bank, State Bank of India, IDBI, Canara Bank, Indian Bank and Central Bank of India," CBI spokesperson R C Joshi said.
The searches were spread across Kanpur, Delhi, Ghaziabad, Mathura, Noida, Gurgaon, Chennai, Thiruvarur, Vellore, Tiruppur, Bengaluru, Guntur, Hyderabad, Ballari, Vadodara, Kolkata, West Godavari, Surat, Mumbai, Bhopal, Nimadi, Tirupati Visakhapatnam, Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Karnal, Jaipur and Sri Ganganagar.
"It may be stated that the CBI has been receiving a number of complaints from various banks alleging cheating, diversion of funds, submission of fake/forged documents by different defaulting firms while obtaining loans/credit facilities etc," Joshi said.
The CBI added it was receiving allegations that such firms have been turning defaulters, resulting in the loans becoming Non-Performing Assets (NPAs), thus causing heavy losses to the public sector banks.
"After scrutiny, the cases are registered by CBI. Thorough investigation is carried out in order to book the culprits, take them to face the law and endeavour to salvage public money," Joshi said.