BANGALORE: In view of the international ramifications of the case pertaining to alleged fraudulent financial transactions involving an employee of the Bangalore-based data processing centre of European bank HSBC Holdings, the Corps of Detectives (CoD), which is investigating the case, will seek Interpol's assistance to unravel the racket.

Though the CoD has arrested Nadeem Kashmiri, the accused data processing centre employee, investigators are yet to trace his accomplices in the U.K. to whom he allegedly passed on confidential information for carrying out fraudulent transactions through ATMs, debit cards and telephone banking services.

The bank has estimated that the accomplices of the accused swindled nearly £233,000 from the accounts of 16 customers of the bank.

Sources in the CoD told The Hindu on Wednesday that as Nadeem's accomplices, victims and beneficiaries were in the U.K., the CoD would seek the help of the U.K. police through Interpol.

The accused also attempted to fraudulently withdraw money from 20 more accounts, but alert staff at the bank had prevented it. The bank authorities had filed complaints with the U.K. police, the sources said.

The investigation so far had revealed that Nadeem was reportedly paid Rs. 4,000 for data on each account he passed on to accomplices in the U.K. In all, Nadeem had received Rs. 80,000 through money transfer, the sources said.

Nadeem was reportedly advised by a friend, who also works in a call centre of another leading bank here, and his brother to desist from such activity. But, the accomplices in the U.K. had threatened him through an email that they would inform his employers of his misconduct if he stopped feeding them with information, the sources said. Though Nadeem claimed that he came across the accomplices through the Internet and they had promised him a job in the U.K., the investigators suspect that he might have personally met the other accused. The sources do not rule out a larger conspiracy and the involvement of a syndicate, or even some terrorist group with an intention to break the security system of international banks, in the racket.

Nadeem, who was produced in the IV Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court on Tuesday, was remanded in police custody till 4 p.m. on July 4. The CoD is taking the assistance of a technical team of the HSBC, which has come here from Hyderabad, in the investigation, the sources said.

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