HYDERABAD: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) conducted searches at various places in the city following the registration of a case against a Mumbai-based company and ten directors of three other private companies.
Punjab National Bank filed a complaint stating that three private Mumbai-based companies and their directors had caused the bank an alleged loss of Rs 4,886.72 crore in connivance with a former Deputy Manager of the bank.
The accused persons reportedly sent unauthorized letters of undertaking and foreign letters of credit to overseas branches of Indian banks, on the basis of which the overseas branches released funds to the suppliers of said companies or cleared the companies' outstanding liabilities.
CBI officials said that searches were conducted at 26 locations across five states, including Mumbai, Pune, Surat, Jaipur, Hyderabad and Coimbatore, on Friday. The official and residential premises of the accused and factories and plants of the companies were searched, which led to the recovery of incriminating documents and other items.
The directors and the subsidiaries of the companies are based in cities including Mumbai, Pune, and Coimbatore.
The raids were conducted by the Enforcement Directorate after a case was registered by CBI. CBI officials did not name the companies or the directors implicated in the case.
Punjab National Bank recently detected a $1.77 billion (about Rs 11,400 crore) scam perpetrated at one of its branches in Mumbai. The bank was allegedly defrauded by diamond merchant Nirav Modi and his business partner Mehul Choksi, the promoter of the Gitanjali jewellery chain.
