With the alleged frauds in the Golden Key and Sakvithi companies hitting the headlines, similar though smaller-scale swindling is also reported from various parts of the country.
In one case in the cinnamon growing village of Meetiyagoda in the Galled District, a large number of people are reported to have lost their savings. Depositors in at least six of the branches of the Mawanella-based ‘Sri Lanka Human Resources Development Cooperative Bank Society Ltd ’, registered as a bank, are among the victims who include small-time farmers, fisherfolk and those in cottage industries.
Depositors allege that many other branches of this bank have also been shut down because of mismanagement or fraud.
They say managers of these bank branches have now disappeared with the money. The managers had projected themselves as developers of human resources but turned out to be developers of themselves and their families by defrauding the money of the unsuspecting villagers.
The desperate customers of the Meetiyagoda branch had formed a depositors’ society to collect documentary evidence of the alleged fraud. They say the documents were submitted to the authorities, including the CID and the Commission Probing Bribery and Corruption, but little or no action has been taken.
The depositors say the manager and the staff of the bank had visited their houses and encouraged them to invest by promising huge interest rates.
Those who helped find depositors were also promised jobs in the bank. Some youth thus deposited a few lakhs in the bank and were given jobs. Now they have lost both their deposits and their jobs.
The depositors alleged that the amount involved in the fraud is about Rs. 9 million and they believe the bank manager and his wife are the main culprits.
The depositors alleged that the manager pocketed about Rs. 100,000 in a transaction to buy a plot of land for the bank branch. They say the seller was paid Rs. 1.3 million while the receipt book showed the payment of Rs. 1.4 million.
They allege the manager also swindled bank deposits by preparing false loan applications with forged signatures for his own family members . |
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