On Thursday, a special CBI court in Mumbai convicted eight individuals, including Ramesh Chandra Tiwari, a senior manager at Punjab National Bank (PNB), for defrauding the State Bank of India (SBI) of ₹8.64 crore (approximately $1.04 million USD) through a scheme involving forged Letters of Credit (LCs). This case, which began in 2009, involved the creation of counterfeit LCs from PNB’s Solapur branch using fake identities and manipulated verification channels. The accused induced SBI to release funds by presenting these forged LCs, which were initially accepted as genuine due to telephonic confirmations from imposters posing as PNB officials. However, a second verification revealed the fraud when the actual branch manager denied issuing any such LCs. The court noted significant lapses by SBI, which failed to verify the LCs with a local branch before disbursing funds, allowing the accused to exploit the system. The court sentenced the key accused to up to three years of rigorous imprisonment for charges including cheating, forgery, and conspiracy, while Tiwari received a concurrent sentence under the Prevention of Corruption Act.