Ludhiana: Police have launched a manhunt for a fugitive former private bank employee following a wave of new fraud complaints from the Jagraon area, just days after he was initially booked for duping a customer.
Lovepreet Singh, a former staff member at a Jagraon bank branch, was originally targeted by Ludhiana rural cybercrime authorities after client Parminder Kaur reported he had cheated her under the guise of blocking her credit card.
The investigating officer, assistant sub-inspector Jagrup Singh, confirmed that five additional complaints have since been received, all of which are currently being verified as part of an expanding probe into a fraud scheme suspected to total hundreds of thousands of rupees.
Preliminary inquiries indicate that Singh leveraged his three to four years of employment at the branch—which he left only last month—to access customer card details for personal shopping and fuel payments. Sources reveal the accused systematically obtained one-time passwords (OTPs) from unsuspecting clients under various pretexts and diverted automated transaction alerts to his own mobile number to hide the theft. Authorities note that the suspect has since changed his contact number to evade capture.
In response to the growing scam, police have issued a public advisory urging citizens never to share OTPs or financial details with anyone, noting that targeted awareness campaigns are now being deployed across local schools and colleges.
