Junior employee embezzled Rs 45 million from HBL

Police have arrested a junior level employee of the Himalayan Bank Limited (HBL) on charges of embezzling over45 million rupees by misappropriating balances held in unclaimed accounts of the bank, reports said.

The HBL has informed that Purusotum Dahal, who has been working in the bank since last ten years as a supervisor used to transfer some portion of unclaimed accounts to the accounts of his friends in various banks of Nepal.

He was able to transfer Rs 42.5 within a period of eight months. According to reports HBL has around 200 million in unclaimed accounts.

The fraud was discovered by Mustaq Ali, who was in the bank for the special internal auditing from Habib Bank of Pakistan, which has 20 percent equity participation in the HBL.

Dahal has accepted the crime and vowed to pay back the entire amount. According to Investigation team, he lost large amounts in different casinos. In his statement given to the investigation team he said that part of the embezzled money was used in building two houses in Kathmandu.

The bank had corresponded Nepal Rastra Bank to suspend the bank accounts of all people in whose account he had transferred the amount.

"We have initiated an in-depth investigation and the bank will recover the money at any cost," Kantipur Daily quoted chief executive officer of the bank Ashok Rana as saying.

Police are also preparing to file a case against Dahal for fraud. nepalneews.com Nov 01 05