Rs 6,000-cr Bank of Baroda scam: CBI files 2 supplementary chargesheets

The CBI has filed two supplementary chargesheets in connection with alleged illegal remittance of Rs 6,000 crore from a Bank of Baroda branch in Delhi to Hong Kong, camouflaged as payment for imports, sources said.

In the chargesheets filed before a special CBI court, the central agency has alleged that a group of people opened accounts and deposited funds in them through various other accounts.

The CBI has named nine accused in the supplementary chargesheets: Tanuj Gulati, Ish Kumar, Ujjwal Suri, Hunney Goel, Sahil Wadhwa, Rakesh Kumar, Sagar Gulati, Bhanu Gulati and VPC Management Consultants Pvt. Ltd.

The agency had in 2015 booked several officials of the bank and others for allegedly making remittances of over Rs 6,000 crore to South East Asian countries by 59 current account holders from the Ashok Vihar branch of Bank of Baroda in the garb of purported payments of "non-existent" imports, the sources said.

The CBI sources said the agency has found that the Ashok Vihar branch of the bank was a relatively new one and got the permission to entertain forex transactions only in 2013.

They said that Rs 6,000 crore was transferred through nearly 8,000 transactions done between July, 2014 and July, 2015.

The amount remitted in each transaction was kept at less than USD 1 lakh.

All the remittances were made to Hong Kong. The amount was remitted as advance for import and in most of the cases, the beneficiary was the same," an official had said after filing of the FIR.

Most of the foreign exchange-related transactions were carried out in the newly opened current accounts wherein heavy cash receipts were observed but the branch did not generate Exceptional Transaction Report (ETR) and did not monitor the high value transactions," a senior official had said after filing of the FIR.

The sources said these remittances were sent by splitting them into amounts below USD 1 lakh to avoid automatic detection by the software used by banks to alert them about such transactions.

They said in taxation language, the technique is known as smurfing' and holders were able to skip the scrutiny of such transactions.

"It was revealed that most of the addresses given by the companies /firms were either false or the companies/firms did not exist at the said addresses. Most of the accused persons allegedly involved in perpetration of the said crime have been identified and their interrogation is underway," the official had said.