The CID believes the public can help them track down a former employee of a private bank, wanted in connection with a 19 million rupee fraud.

"The suspect dodged us for several years," an investigator said. He expressed belief that they would be able to locate the suspect's whereabouts with public assistance.

The employee had swindled the Colombo branch of a leading private bank several years ago and disappeared before the management lodged a complaint with the CID.

Investigators believe he may have left the country on a forged passport.

The suspect had manipulated the system and the possibility of inside help could not be ruled out, they said. Any information on the whereabouts of the suspect could be passed on to CID on 0112 422176 or 0112 232141-4.

The CID is in the process of investigating over a dozen frauds involving bank employees, both in the private and the state sector. Police said that middle level employees are devising ways and means of manipulating internal safeguards largely due to negligence of the top management.

Police acknowledged that over the past several years they had recorded a significant increase in the number of bank frauds. In fact, the losses suffered due to ‘inside jobs' were much more than that caused by armed raids.