Rs 6,000 cr remitted from Bank of Baroda to Hong Kong; CBI files charge sheet
Delhi/IBNS: The Central Bureau of Investigation has filed two supplementary charge sheets in relation to the alleged illegal remittance of Rs 6,000 crore from Delhi's Bank of Baroda branch to Hong Kong, in the garb of payment for imports, media reported.
In the charge sheets filed before a special CBI court, CBI has named nine accused Tanuj Gulati, Ish Kumar, Ujjwal Suri, Hunney Goel, Sahil Wadhwa, Rakesh Kumar, Sagar Gulati, Bhanu Gulati, and VPC Management Consultants Pvt Ltd, news agency PTI reported.
In 2015, charged several officials of the bank and others for allegedly making remittances of over Rs 6,000 crore to southeast Asian countries by 59 current account holders from the Ashok Vihar branch of Bank of Baroda camouflaged as purported payments for "non-existent" imports, the sources said, according to the report.
While investigating, the agency found that the Ashok Vihar branch of the bank is a relatively new one and got the permission to entertain forex transactions only in 2013.
A total of Rs 6,000 crore was transferred through nearly 8,000 transactions done between July 2014 and July 2015, the agency said.
In each transaction less than $100,000 were remitted to avoid detection by software used by banks to alert them about such transactions, the report stated.
"All the remittances were made to Hong Kong. The amount was remitted as an advance for import and in most of the cases, the beneficiary was the same," an official had said after filing an FIR.
"Most of the foreign exchange-related transactions were carried out in the newly-opened current accounts where 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.
The agency said the technique is called "smurfing" and holders were able to evade scrutiny of such transactions, according to the report.
"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 the perpetration of the said crime have been identified and their interrogation is underway," the official had said, according to PTI report.
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