No one would have slotted him as a thief or an embezzler; after all, Tarak Jaiswal had an unblemished record in the eight years he worked at the State Bank of India, the country’s biggest lender.
But Jaiswal, 35, a senior assistant manager at the bank’s branch in Memari, a town 82 km from Kolkata, in West Bengal’s East Burdwan district, had an itch — gambling. And his position, as custodian of the currency chest, made it possible for him to scratch it. Over the 17 months he spent at the branch, he stole Rs 84 lakh — all in coins.
Even assuming all the coins were the highest denomination publicly circulated, Rs 10, that would mean he spirited away 840,000 coins in the span of 17 months, or close to 50,000 coins every month, or 2,000 coins every day (assuming 25 working days).
But crime doesn’t pay — not even in coins. He was arrested on Friday and confessed soon after; his undoing was an annual audit that began on November 27. On Saturday, a local court sent him to police custody for five days.
It turns out that Jaiswal took the risk to fund his addiction to lotteries.
“Jaiswal confessed to his crime and claimed that he spent the entire money on lottery tickets. We are trying to find out if he had an accomplice,” Bhaskar Mukherjee, superintendent of police, East Burdwan district, said.
The auditors found a huge quantity of currency notes and coins in the bank’s vault and asked officials to count the coins on November 29. Sensing that his game was up, Jaiswal stopped coming to office without applying for leave. The auditors detected a huge mismatch in the stock of coins.
Since Jaiswal handled all the cash at the end of each working day and was in charge of the currency chest, he became the prime suspect. When the auditors demanded his presence at the branch, Jaiswal sent his wife with the keys to the chest.
Tarun Kumar Saha, regional manager of the bank, lodged a complaint at Memari police station. “We filed a complaint when we found a huge amount of coins missing,” Saha said.
On Friday, Soubanik Mukherjee, a sub-divisional police officer, went to the bank and asked the branch manager to summon Jaiswal. After hours of grilling, the executive broke down.
“He said during interrogation that he always knew he would be caught someday but could not stop himself from buying lottery tickets. He also claimed that nobody in the bank helped him,” a police officer involved in the probe said on condition of anonymity.
The officer said the investigators are trying to figure out how Jaiswal transported the coins out of the bank.
Police have also asked the bank why it kept such huge amounts in coins.
The last audit at the branch was conducted in February 2017. “We will ask the branch to explain why such a huge quantity of coins was not sent to the regional office or the Reserve Bank of India. Jaiswal might have stolen currency notes as well since there was no one to check him,” the police officer added.