Bhubaneswar: Odisha vigilance officials busted an alleged decade-long financial fraud in the divisional forest officer’s (DFO) unit in Dhenkanal district, arresting a senior clerk and two accomplices on Sunday on charges of siphoning off govt funds worth Rs 65.90 lakh through fraudulent salary and pension bills raised in the names of dismissed, absconding and dead employees.The arrested accused were identified as Sujit Kumar Jena, a senior clerk in the DFO’s office, and his alleged accomplices, Soumya Ranjan Behera and Rashmi Ranjan Swain.Vigilance SP (Cuttack) K B Acharya said Jena was the alleged mastermind of the fraud. The agency launched a probe about a month ago following a tip-off about the suspected misappropriation and registered a case this month.A detailed verification of financial transactions between 2016 and 2026 revealed a systematic pattern of alleged fund diversion, vigilance officials said.“Jena abused his official position and access to financial records to divert govt money into bank accounts belonging to himself, his family members and associates. The fraud involved salaries meant for dismissed and absconding employees, arrears of retired staff, provisional pension payments, establishment and contingency expenses, salary arrears of employees and travel allowance claims,” Acharya said.Officials said the investigation is underway to ascertain how the fraud went undetected for nearly a decade.Acharya said the probe revealed that Rs 8.72 lakh was transferred to the bank account of Jena’s mother, while Rs 10.48 lakh was allegedly routed to Behera, an elephant squad member. Another Rs 8.86 lakh was allegedly transferred to a close associate of Swain, the vigilance officials said.The three accused had allegedly been absconding for the past few days after the suspected fraud came to light. Vigilance personnel tracked them down using technical intelligence and mobile phone surveillance, leading to their arrest.The trio was produced before a vigilance court in Dhenkanal and remanded to judicial custody. “Our investigation is underway to establish whether other persons were involved in the embezzlement and fix accountability,” Acharya said.
