New Delhi, Mar 25 (IANS): The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Thursday conducted searches at more than 100 places across India in connection with more than 30 cases of bank fraud amounting to over Rs 3,700 crore, officials said.

A CBI spokesperson here said that the searches are part of a special drive to book the fraudusters on the complaints received from different public sector banks in India.

He said that the complainant banks include the Indian Oversea Bank, the Union Bank of India, the Bank of Baroda, the Punjab National Bank, the State Bank of India, the IDBI, Canara Bank, the Indian Bank and the Central Bank of India.

The official said that the the agency carried out searches at Kanpur, Delhi, Ghaziabad, Mathura, Noida, Gurugram, Chennai, Thiruvarur, Vellore, Tiruppur, Bengaluru, Guntur, Hyderbad, Bellary, Vadodara, Kolkata, West Godavari, Surat, Mumbai, Bhopal, Nimadi, Tirupati, Visakhapatnam, Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Karnal, Jaipur, and Sriganganagar.

During the searches, various incriminating documents and other material/digital evidences have been recovered, the official said.

The official said that the agency has been receiving a number of complaints from various banks alleging cheating, diversion of funds, submission of fake or forged documents by different defaulting firms while obtaining loans or credit facilities etc.

He said that there have been allegations that such firms have been turning defaulters resulting into the loans becoming Non-Performing Assets (NPAs), thus causing heavy loss to the public sector banks.

The official said that after scrutiny, the cases are registered by the CBI and a thorough investigation is carried out in order to book the culprits, take them to face the law and endeavour to salvage public money.