Two firm bosses held for duping banks of Rs 160 cr

 

Mar 19, 2010, 02.34am IST
 Source:Prafulla Marpakwar, TNN,

MUMBAI: Two directors of a Pune-based company

were arrested on Thursday for defrauding four

nationalised bank of Rs 160 crore.

A team of CBI’s banking security and fraud cell led by
P K Mankar picked up Mahendra Chandradas Satav and 

Anil Mahadeo Howale, directors of Satav Infrastructures

on charges of criminal conspiracy, breach of trust, cheating,
forgery and using forged documents as genuine.

“Among the four, they duped UCO Bank of Rs 27.56 crore... part
of the funds released by the bank has been siphoned off through the
accounts they held in four banks... the total amount of fraud is to
the tune of Rs 160 crore... their custodial interrogation is essential,’’
CBI additional superintendent Mankar told the court, which
remanded the two in four days’ CBI custody.

Following a complaint lodged by UCO bank zonal manager
(Mumbai) Rajesh Kumar Agarwal, the CBI on March 26, 2009,
registered a case against Satav and Howale.

The two allegedly plotted the conspiracy to cheat UCO bank
in 2003-04. Following that, they submitted fake documents the
Pune and Mumbai regional offices of UCO Bank.

The CBI investigation revealed that Satav and Howale lied
to the bank that National Hydro Power Corporation had 
awarded them a contract to build a tunnel in Jammu and Kashmir;
the project was actually given to a Mumbai-based firm, Gammon Srinivasa JV.

“Satav Infrastructures was a sub-contractor, but they never revealed
this fact to the bank, which was under the impression that they were
the main contractors.

This way, Satav and Howale obtained a
working capital facility of Rs 10 crore in February 2004.

Even after the subcontract was terminated in December 2005,
the accused did not inform the bank about it and obtained an
enhancement of credit facilities of Rs 20 crore to Rs 36.23 crore,’’
Mankar said.

Officials said letters of credit (LC)s, which were realised,
were opened by the accused in favour of their sister concerns
but no material was supplied to the site.

All the lorry receiptsand invoices submitted
to the bank and negotiated under the LCs
were fake and forged.

Bogus accounts of the firms were opened
at various banks and bills under the LCs were discounted, but no
genuine deal was ever conducted, an official said.

“The funds were diverted through a complicated web of 
transactions and fictitious accounts opened in banks,’’ Mankar said.