Also arrests Vipul Ambani & 4 senior executives of Nirav Modi’s Firestar International in PNB fraud case
AMN
The Central Bureau of Investigation, CBI, has arrested Vipul Ambani and four other senior executives of Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi’s companies in Punjab National Bank (PNB) fraud case. On Monday, the agency had questioned Vipul Ambani who is the chief financial officer of Nirav Modi’s Firestar International.
The other arrested persons are Kavita Mankikar, who is the authorised signatory of three accused persons, senior executive of firestar Arjun Patil, CFO of Nakshatra and Gitanjali group Kapil Khandelwal and Manager of Gitanjali group Niten Shahi.
Meanwhile, a special CBI court in Mumbai has sent three officials of the PNB to police custody till 3rd of next month. The officials, Bechhu Tiwari, Yashwant Joshi and Praful Sawant, working with Brady House branch of the bank in Mumbai, were arrested on Monday in connection with over 11 thousand crore rupee PNB scam.
The Reserve Bank of India, RBI, has set up a committee to look into the factors leading to increasing incidents of bank frauds. It will be headed by RBI board member Y H Malegam, who is also a former president of Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. The committee will also look into reasons for high divergence in NPA classification and provisioning by banks.
The move comes a week after Punjab National Bank said it has fallen victim to over 11 thousand crore rupee fraud, at the centre of which is billionaire jeweller Nirav Modi. In a statement, RBI said it had alerted banks thrice on potential malicious use of SWIFT infrastructure since August 2016, advising them to implement the safeguards detailed in the RBI’s communications, for pre-empting such occurrences.
The statement further said that banks have, however, been at varying levels in the implementation of such measures.SWIFT (Society For Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) is an infrastructure to provide secure financial messaging services across the globe.
In another development, CBI has detained Kanpur based Rotomac pen promoter Vikram Kothari in connection with over 3600 crore loan default case. The agency has lodged a case on a complaint from Bank of Baroda against Kothari, his family members and three Directors from the company.
Kothari families’ bank details, property documents, pen drives, laptops have been seized by the investigative agency along with their passports. Searches were conducted for two days at the residential and official premises of the accused at Kanpur.
The Investigation is still continuing and opened lockers at different banks of Kothari family in the presence of his wife yesterday. Enforcement Directorate has also lodged a case of money laundering against Kothari. A team of ED has also assessed documents and records seized from his Tilak Nagar residence.