Bhubaneswar: The Odisha vigilance department on Tuesday arrested a 35-year-old banker for allegedly conniving with his father, a retired headmaster, in a massive pension fraud case that siphoned off more than Rs 5.5 crore of govt funds in a span of six years. The father, who is the prime accused in the case, fabricated bills in the names of 13 retired teachers and stole crores.The banker was identified as Matruprasad Mohanty. His father, Pradip Kumar Mohanty (66), remains absconding.The scam was exposed following intelligence inputs received by the vigilance directorate. Though Pradip had retired from the office of block education officer (BEO) at Korei in Jajpur district on Aug 31, 2019, he continued to operate illegally in the accounts section until vigilance began probing the case two months ago. Between Nov 2018 and Sept 2024, Pradip allegedly exploited the office’s online human resource management system, stealing pension details of 13 retired teachers. While the genuine pensioners received their dues regularly, Pradip is accused of preparing duplicate bills in their names through forgery and routing them to the treasury.“We are at a complete loss as to how double bills were cleared and went unnoticed for six years. The fake bills carried the names of the 13 teachers, but the account numbers belonged to Pradip and his son and this continued for six years,” a senior vigilance official said.Investigators suspect complicity of senior officials at the BEO office. “It appears to be a multi-layered scam. At least three BEOs served during this period. They will be questioned on how Pradip was allowed to handle sensitive accounts work post-retirement without any official order,” the official added.Pradip has been absconding since two months when the vigilance probe intensified. Multiple teams have been deployed to trace him.The immediate challenge, vigilance officials said, is recovery of the misappropriated funds. “He withdrew all the money. We will initiate property attachment proceedings and trace assets held by his family and benami associates,” the official said.
