The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has attached immovable properties of Maharashtra-based Nipko Engineering Services Pvt. Ltd. worth Rs 62.70 crore in a money laundering case linked to a bank fraud.
The ED had initiated money laundering investigation in 2020 on the basis of an FIR registered by the Anti-Corruption Branch, CBI, Pune, wherein a complaint was filed against Nipko Engineering, its director Narendra Achyut Rao Korde and unknown officials of Andhra Bank and other persons for a bank fraud of about Rs 72.99 crore.
“The modus operandi used for laundering the funds was that the accused obtained false/ fake purchase orders from different companies/ firms and thereafter prepared forged supporting documents like invoices, delivery challans, goods receipts notes etc. to show the genuine transactions of goods between the companies,” the ED said in a statement.
Thereafter, these documents along with application for bill discounting were submitted to Andhra Bank. Then other associates like directors/proprietors/authorized signatories of fictitious buyer companies used to give acceptance of the said bills to their respective banks wherein no physical transactions of goods were done, it said.
The said fake bills were discounted and amounts were credited in the companies’ account of Korde. The funds generated were further laundered in the guise of payment to third parties / fictitious firms and cash withdrawal.