Panama Papers: Hyderabad industrialist Moturi was in Rs 19 crore scam

Hyderabad: Industrialist Moturi Srinivas Prasad, a Hyderabadi who was director of four offshore British Virgin Island companies named in the Panama Papers, is facing a trial in an unrelated fraud case pertaining to the Visakhapatnam Special Economic zone to the tune of Rs19 crore.

He was arrested on April 2, 2012, and is on bail. He is the MD of Xtraa Cleancities Limited, a unit of VSEZ, which allegedly resorted to cheating in export of bio-diesel.

Duvvada police inspector Simhadri Naidu said, “A case under Section 420 IPC was registered. Moturi Srinivasa Prasad was arrested on April 2. The case is under trial and it is in the stage of first examination of accused. It was posted to April 29 in 2016." Mr Prasad, along with others, had floated companies with ambitious plans of powering global aviation with bio fuel.

Moturi says did nothing wrong
Industrialist Moturi Srini-vas Prasad is facing a trial in an unrelated fraud case pertaining to the Visak-hapatnam Special Econo-mic zone to the tune of Rs 19 crore pertaining his Xtraa Cleancities Limited.

Initial VSEZ had slapped a fine of Rs 66.30 crore on Xtraa Cleancities Limited along with a personal penalty of Rs 3.8 crore on the company’s director for alleged violation of foreign trade rules. The company has a biodiesel plant in Visakhapatnam and exported several consignments of biodiesel from Jatropa plant to Europe.

Mr Prasad meanwhile said, “Xtraa Cleancities is bona fide and nothing wrong has been done. There were no illegalities. It is basically a trade rivalry. Apart from the criminal case we have a civil case pending in Delhi High Court.

The initial penalty of Rs 70 crore has been reduced to Rs 20 crore. We went to the Supreme Court. Government hasn’t given any incentive and there is no waiver to us. All accusations are being contested. We have exported to Europe and the case in Europe is against importers and not against me or our company.”