Indian woman finds Dhs15.5 million in her account

A flower vendor in India wants the Rs300 million (Dhs15.5million) she found in her zero-balance account handed over to the government.

Rehana Banu, 30, and her husband Imran, from Bengaluru, claimed that someone had wired the large sum to her State Bank of India savings account, reported a section of the media in India.

According to the couple, they have been in touch with the police a number of times, so, the government can take over the money. They only came public with the incident because no action has been taken, two months after they reported.

Ever since the account was opened in 2015, Banu has had zero balance in it. However, a bank official visited her and her husband in December last year with the news that a large sum had been transferred to her account.

When Banu visited the bank, an official claimed that she had not received any money and tried making her sign three forms, which she refused. Her refusal led the official to threaten placing a call to the police.

The official asked Banu and Imran if they had shared their account details with anyone in Delhi. Her spouse admitted to giving the details to someone who called them saying they had won a car and asked for Rs600,000 (Dh31,000) as insurance. He shared the account details when the person on the other end of call agreed to give him money instead, but confirmed that he had not received a call since.

Banu’s spouse checked the account's balance at two different ATMs and upon confirming that there was indeed more than Dh15 million in it, he approached the bank to get a statement but officials had the account seized, and no action has been taken yet.

He claimed that an unidentified person contacted him claiming to be the person who wired the money to Rehana's account, wanting Imran to give him half the money and keep the rest.

Police suspect online fraudsters may have used the account for illicit purposes and are working on tracing the man who contacted Imran.