Malda, Feb. 20: Police here have picked up a man in connection with a bank fraud running into lakhs of rupees and involving colour photocopies of a demand draft that was stolen from a bank in Murshidabad’s Behrampore in January.

Over the past one month, Rs 39.5 lakh had been deposited in five accounts of different banks here using colour photocopies of the demand draft lost from the Behrampore branch of HDFC Bank.

Employees at Syndicate Bank, which acts as the clearing agent for HDFC in Malda, had reportedly failed to detect that the drafts were fake.

The fraud came to light when three more copies of the same demand draft, together worth Rs 60 lakh, were sent to Syndicate Bank on February 18 by the Mangalbari branch of UCO Bank, where they had been deposited.

The drafts were drawn in favour of Kanak Ghosh, Biplab Ghosh and Kamona Ghosh. All three are residents of Old Malda’s Mangalbari area, according to records available with the local branch of UCO Bank, where they have accounts.

This time, Syndicate Bank realised that all the drafts had the same number — 421046 — and alerted the police. “We also got in touch with all the banks, but Rs 31 lakh of the Rs 39.5 lakh deposited earlier had already been withdrawn from the five accounts,” said Saroj Kumar Das, the manager of Syndicate Bank here.

Some of the accounts were in the name of companies, others in the name of individuals.

“We have arrested Biplab Ghosh, a resident of Old Malda, and are looking for the others,” said Malda police chief Stayajit Banerjee.

Biplab will be produced in court tomorrow.

The police chief expressed surprise at the way the bank employees had been duped by the fake demand drafts, which had been photocopied on inferior-quality paper.

“We are also investigating to find out if any bank employee is involved in this fraud,” Banerjee said.

The manager of Syndicate Bank here said the earlier fake drafts had been deposited on five different dates in January and therefore could not be detected.

According to police sources, the original draft had most probably been stolen from HDFC Behrampore sometime in January. After that, those involved in the racket made copies of the draft by colour-Xeroxing it.

“We are trying to see the transaction records of the five accounts in question. It will strengthen our case against the frauds,” the police chief said.