RBP looking at larceny angle in Bank glitch case

2026-03-30 - 13:01

The Royal Bhutan Police (RBP) is investigating the bank glitch case as a possible larceny case after detaining the businessman who received around Nu 1.5 billion in his account and used Nu 191 mn for paying loans, land transaction and paying suppliers. Depending on its investigation, RBP is looking at two options. One is larceny of property lost, mislaid, or delivered by mistake under section 253 of the penal code. It says “a defendant shall be guilty of larceny of property lost, mislaid, or delivered by mistake, if the defendant comes into control of property known to have been lost, mislaid, or delivered under a mistake as to the nature or amount of the property or the identity of the recipient and with the purpose of depriving the owner thereof, the defendant fails to take reasonable measures to restore the property to the person entitled to it.” This is a petty misdemeanor charge. This may be applicable as a source said that the businessman found money is his account in huge amounts that does not belong to him, and used it which is equivalent to finding someone else’s money and not returning it and instead using it. The other option is larceny itself under section 240 which essentially means theft. Here the section says, “A defendant shall be guilty of the offence of larceny, if the defendant takes or moves the property of another person without the owner’s consent and with the intent to deprive the owner of the property or to appropriate the same to the defendant or a third person.” The offence of larceny is a value-based sentencing. A source said this charge may be applicable since the businessman transferred some of the money from the faulty account with unlimited balance to his other business accounts knowingly. The police are expected to hold the businessman for some more days for investigation and interrogation before letting him go. The Bhutanese took a closer look at some the account transactions with the permission of the representative of the businessman and found that essentially the faulty account was a BoB account with the last two digits of 82 which was a counter account at a shop. This account started going into minus balance and transferring huge amounts to the main account with the last two digits of 13. The counter account of 82 had been designed to automatically transfer sales of the day money from itself to the main account of 13. A person speaking on behalf of the businessman pointed out that most of the large transactions from the faulty BoB account 82 had been done automatically by the bank’s system itself as it transferred the money to the main account 13. Bank records show that it all started on 28th February 2026 when account 82 only had Nu 1,000 balance but an amount of Nu 28,800 was sent via MBoB and instead of rejecting the transfer it allowed it and showed a minus balance of -27,800. A family member of the businessman disputes the bank statement saying this Nu 28,800 payment was not done by them but by the bank system and they have the sms message to prove it. Then on 1st March 2026 the businessman made a series of transactions via this account to his other accounts with even a Nu 1.7 million transfer taking the balance to -3.425 mn. Then the system mistaking the negative or minus balance as balance transferred 3.325 mn automatically to his main account of 13. In the meantime, the balance in account 82 became -6.750 mn and after a short while the bank system transferred Nu 5.321 mn to his main account, and then again Nu 13.40 mn, Nu 26.23 mn, Nu 54.10 mn and Nu 105 mn to his main account. The businessman himself did smaller transactions like Nu 1.5 mn, Nu 1.1 mn and Nu 4 mn on the same day to others from account 82. On 2nd March 2026 the system again transferred Nu 199 million by itself from this faulty account 82 to the main account 13. On 3rd March the system again transferred Nu 398.27 mn by itself from the faulty account to the main account, followed by another Nu 796.51 mn transfer on the same day. On the same day the balance in the faulty account had reached Nu -1.593 billion (bn) showing the total money sent out to other accounts and mainly into the main linked account. BoB detected and started reversing the payments from 16th March 2026 onwards reducing it to Nu -17.33 mn as of 20th March 2026 showing it had successfully recovered most of the money. The businessman had started using money from the main account to make various payments of Nu 2 mn, 1 mn, 3 mn, 10 mn, 5 mn, 1.2 mn, 50 mn, 10 mn, 10 mn, 6 mn, 10 mn, 4.5 mn, 29 mn, 1.1 mn, 1.2 mn, 1.5 mn, 10 mn, 1 mn, 1 mn, 1 mn, 20 mn, 5 mn, 10 mn and many smaller amounts in between from 1st March till 14th March 2026 that comes to a total of around Nu 191 mn plus. The person said they had gone to the bank on 16th, 17th and 18th March to talk about the issue but there was no response. He said in fact they went on 16th March morning which was even before the accounts were frozen on the evening of 16th March 2026. The person said they are facing a lot of issues as some accounts which received money from the businessman are still in hold and they come demanding money from the business to the extent that some had to be paid in cash He said they have some FDI partners in mining and other businesses who have also come but they don’t know how to say that the boss himself is under detention. He said the businessman did not do anything wrong and is ready to pay back the money in tranches.