Millennials are getting desperate for employment. This 19-year-old from India decided to take a rather creative but criminal approach to entrepreneurship – he opened a fake branch of the government-run public sector State Bank of India (SBI). And it was up-and-running for three months before getting busted.
The good news – nobody was duped. In fact, it got exposed because of an SBI account holder who got suspicious and alerted the actual local branch.
As per Indian news channels, the teenaged Kamal Babu from Tamil Nadu, who was arrested along with two other accomplices, is the son of former bank employees.
@MirrowNow tweeted: “In #TamilNadu, a fake SBI (@TheOfficialSBI) branch has been busted, which was reportedly running since the past 3 months. The fake bank branch was spotted by an SBI employee passing through the area.”
His father, a bank employee, died 10 years ago, and his mother also retired from a bank two years ago. Facing unemployment, Babu came up with the idea of opening a fake branch in Panruti. Apparently the interiors replicated the actual branch to the last detail.
News reports added that two accomplices including “Manickam (52) who owns a rubber stamp making company, Kumar (42) who is the owner of a printing press, were the others who were taken into custody”.
Ricky @apurva0512 tweeted: “After #FakeEncounter presenting you #fakebank #SBI seems like bollywood getting new scripts on a row.”
Shashidhar Rajan @srajan79 posted: “Extreme level of fraudulent! Complete set of Duplicate #SBI Branch!”
News site India Today clarified that “the police have said that no transactions had taken place in the branch and no one has been duped so far by the bank”.