Bengaluru: Subba Rao M.V., branch manager of Lakshmi vilas Bank (LVB), Koramangala, has filed a couple against a city based industrialist and his wife for having defrauded the bank of Rs:16.15 crores. Reportedly they have fled the country.

He filed the complaint,  when he found that the couple had stopped repaying the loan instalments from August 2014 and went underground in December 2014.

In his complaint, Mr. Rao said the accused, B.S. Padmanabhachar and his wife D. Bharathi, directors of Sujan Precision Components Pvt. Ltd. in Bommasandra Industrial Area, had availed of Rs 4.3 crore loan from the bank for business development. They deposited property documents of Divya Harish and Tambidorai as collateral surety.

Later, the couple applied for an additional loan of Rs. 17.5 crore in 2011, against a collateral surety of a property belonging to Varadhachar. In 2012, they obtained an additional loan of Rs. 2 crore on the pretext of buying property for the company.

After the repayments of loan instalments became irregular, the couple approached Mr. Rao and requested to grant them some time to pay since they had some financial difficulties. However, enquiries by bank officials revealed that the couple were running a finance firm and had duped their customers by taking their property documents, which they had used as collateral security against the loan, the police said.

Investigations so far have found that the couple had sold all their properties, including the house, and fled abroad with their children. “We have to get a lookout circular issued against them,” said a senior police officer.