The Central Bureau of Investigation on Thursday searched more than 100 places in 11 states and Union Territories in connection with 30 cases of bank fraud, amounting to over Rs 3,700 crore.

The investigation agency said that the searches were based on complaints received from nationalised banks about cheating, diversion of funds and forging of documents by firms for obtaining loans. The complainants included the State Bank of India, Punjab National Bank and Union Bank of India.

“There have been allegations that such firms have been turning defaulters resulting into the loans becoming Non Performing Assets, thus causing heavy loss to the public sector banks,” CBI added.

The locations that were searched included Kanpur, Delhi, Ghaziabad, Mathura, Noida, Gurugram, Chennai, Thiruvarur, Vellore, Tiruppur, Bangalore, Gantur, Hyderabad, Ballari, Vadodara, Kolkata, West Godavari, Surat, Mumbai, Bhopal, Nimadi, Tirupati Visakhapatnam, Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Karnal, Jaipur and Sri Ganganagar.

The CBI added that it recovered several incriminating materials and other pieces of evidence against the accused and filed cases against them. “Thorough investigation will be carried out in order to book the culprits, make them face the law and salvage public money,” the CBI added.