The CBI on Friday arrested a Chartered Accountant of Udaipur and a businessman/real estate developer of Jaipur, both private persons, in connection with an ongoing investigation into a `1,000 crore fraud case involving Syndicate Bank.
The CA Bharat Bomb and real estate developer Shankar Khandelwal, the arrested accused were produced on Friday at a designated court in Jaipur (Rajasthan) that remanded them to seven days police custody.
During the searches conducted earlier, the agency had recovered `66 lakh cash, certain electronic hard drives and incriminating documents from the premises of Chartered Accountant's employees and associates including Khandelwal.
The CBI had registered a case on a complaint from Syndicate Bank under IPC sections relating to criminal conspiracy, criminal breach of trust, cheating, forgery among others besides relevant provision of the Prevention of Corruption Act against then General Manager, FGM Office, Syndicate Bank, New Delhi; then DGM, Regional Office, Syndicate Bank Jaipur; then Chief Manager, MI Road Branch, Syndicate Bank, Jaipur; then AGM, Malviya Nagar Branch, Syndicate Bank, Jaipur; then AGM, Syndicate Bank, Udaipur; the CA and two private persons from Udaipur; a private person of Jaipur; certain private companies and other unknown public servants and private persons for causing an a loss of `1000 crore to Syndicate Bank.
The accused persons in connivance with the Bank officials allegedly committed a fraud of `1,000 crore by resorting to discounting of fake cheques and bills against fake letters of credit and arranging over-draft limit against non-existent lIC policies.
The fraud was allegedly committed at branches of Syndicate Bank at Malviya Nagar and MI Road branches in Jaipur and Udaipur branch (Rajasthan).
The amount involved in individual transactions ranged from `40 lakh to `5 crore but majority of them were in the range of `2.5 to 4 .crore to avoid detection. Many of the transactions were nullified in the bank's books from the proceeds of new fraudulent transactions.
During a five-year period, the accused private persons in connivance with the bank officials ran a cycle of `18,000 crore but the actual loss sustained by the bank stood at `1,000 crore.