New Delhi, Enforcement Directorate (ED) provisionally attached assets worth Rs 1.13 Crore belonging to Kondapalli Satyanarayana Rao, who is a retired section supervisor in the Kadapa Sub-Regional Office of the Employees Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) and his family members, under Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in connection with fraudulent diversion of Rs 1.64 crore in his personal bank accounts, said a statement of ED on Monday.
The attached assets are in the form of residential flat valued Rs 98.68 lakh and bank balances Rs 12.64 lakh.
ED initiated money laundering probes on the basis of FIR registered by Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Anti-Corruption Bureau, Hyderabad, against Rao and his family members, for allegedly fraudulently diverting Rs 1.64 crore of public pension funds, in his personal bank accounts and his close relatives, said a statement of ED.
During the probe, it was revealed that the Bank Reconciliation Statement (BRS) data was allegedly tampered with by Rao by inserting fraudulent bank account numbers and fictitious names against randomly selected Pension Payment Order numbers from the pensioners’ data and those who had no pension for over three years due to non-submission of life certificate and cases involving pension-cum-arrears and other benefits, said ED.
The BRS data was downloaded through system protocol available in the Electronic Data Processing reports and copied in a CD and handed over to the banks without any hard copy of the summary report showing the number of pensioners and amount of pension to be disbursed, making it vulnerable to manipulation. The data was uploaded by the bankers without any cross verification, said ED.
Investigation further revealed that a total amount of Rs 1.64 crore was diverted and credited into the accounts of the accused and his close relatives between 2011 and 2014.