CBI books bank, 19 city firms for remittance of Rs421cr to foreign countries
TNN | Updated: Sep 10, 2017, 00:07 IST
Chennai: The anti-corruption branch of CBI, Chennai on Friday booked unknown officials of Punjab National Bank and 19 companies, mainly at Sowcarpet in north chennai, for suspected remittances of Rs 421 crore in foreign currency to UAE, Hong Kong and Taiwan through shell companies.
A case of criminal conspiracy, cheating and forgery and criminal misconduct by public servants has been made out, but case details indicate the Enforcement Directorate (ED) could step in to press other charges.
The modus operandi in the case registered by the CBI is similar to the one in the recent case registered by ED officials who arrested the son of former DMK minister Ko Si Mani.
The 19 companies named in the CBI FIR had opened accounts with PNB and were sending out foreign exchange without genuine business transactions. Money was flowing into the accounts through RTGS transactions from other banks, credit co-operative societies and accounts in Mumbai.
This money was sent out as outward remittances, a method of settlement of dues, through the PNB accounts. A request with a quotation issued by a foreign supplier for 100% advance remittance was made with the bank. The outward remittance was kept at less than $100,000 so that it did not violate regulatory requirements of Reserve Bank of India and hence escape the FEMA violations or ED requirements.
About 700 such remittances worth around Rs 420 crore were made for imports during the five month period. All these were routed through a Nostro account maintained by PNB with HSBC, New York.
When the bank verified the addresses of the account holders, it found none of them there. When it began to insist on the bill of entries as evidence of import, the account holders stopped coming to the bank for foreign remittances, CBI said in the FIR.
The PNB branch also earned Rs 17 lakh as commission and the CBI has alleged that the officials did not verify the genuineness of the transactions or ascertain if the customers had the financial wherewithal to receive such huge money through RTGS.
All the transactions together have caused a loss of Rs 421 crore in foreign exchange to the government of India, CBI said.
In the case handled by ED, the officials had discovered some import-export shell companies which had routed Rs 20 crore in foreign exchange to several south-east asian countries without producing genuine bill of entries.
TNN | Updated: Sep 10, 2017, 00:07 IST
Chennai: The anti-corruption branch of CBI, Chennai on Friday booked unknown officials of Punjab National Bank and 19 companies, mainly at Sowcarpet in north chennai, for suspected remittances of Rs 421 crore in foreign currency to UAE, Hong Kong and Taiwan through shell companies.
A case of criminal conspiracy, cheating and forgery and criminal misconduct by public servants has been made out, but case details indicate the Enforcement Directorate (ED) could step in to press other charges.
The modus operandi in the case registered by the CBI is similar to the one in the recent case registered by ED officials who arrested the son of former DMK minister Ko Si Mani.
The 19 companies named in the CBI FIR had opened accounts with PNB and were sending out foreign exchange without genuine business transactions. Money was flowing into the accounts through RTGS transactions from other banks, credit co-operative societies and accounts in Mumbai.
This money was sent out as outward remittances, a method of settlement of dues, through the PNB accounts. A request with a quotation issued by a foreign supplier for 100% advance remittance was made with the bank. The outward remittance was kept at less than $100,000 so that it did not violate regulatory requirements of Reserve Bank of India and hence escape the FEMA violations or ED requirements.
About 700 such remittances worth around Rs 420 crore were made for imports during the five month period. All these were routed through a Nostro account maintained by PNB with HSBC, New York.
When the bank verified the addresses of the account holders, it found none of them there. When it began to insist on the bill of entries as evidence of import, the account holders stopped coming to the bank for foreign remittances, CBI said in the FIR.
The PNB branch also earned Rs 17 lakh as commission and the CBI has alleged that the officials did not verify the genuineness of the transactions or ascertain if the customers had the financial wherewithal to receive such huge money through RTGS.
All the transactions together have caused a loss of Rs 421 crore in foreign exchange to the government of India, CBI said.
In the case handled by ED, the officials had discovered some import-export shell companies which had routed Rs 20 crore in foreign exchange to several south-east asian countries without producing genuine bill of entries.
No comments:
Post a Comment