Citibank fraud: Gurgaon Police registers FIR against Citi Group CEO Pandit
By ANITuesday, January 4, 2011
GURGAON - Gurgaon Police on Tuesday registered an FIR against Citi Group CEO Vikram Pandit and ten other officials in the cheating case worth around Rs. 300-crore pulled off by suspended Citibank manager Shivraj Puri, who worked at the bank’s Gurgaon branch.
Besides Pandit, the FIR filed by a high net worth individual (HNI) Sanjiv Agarwal with the Gurgaon police also names Citibank chairman William R Rhodes along with other senior officials based in India.
“We got the complaint and immediately registered the FIR (First Information Report)” Gurgaon police commissioner S S Deswal said. In the FIR, Agarwal, who is a resident of Gurgaon, alleged criminal breach of trust, falsification of accounts, cheating and criminal conspiracy by the officials of the Citibank. “All persons named (in FIR)… in collision and conspiracy with each other and other known or unknown persons, (and) have misappropriated large sums of money to the tune of Rs 32.43 crore” Times Now quoted Agarwal, as saying in his complaint.
The case has been registered under sections 409, 477A, 420 and 120B of IPC. The others who have been named in the FIR include Citibank’s senior officials CFO John Gerspach and COO Doughlas Peterson (both based in New York).
Earlier today, the police summoned Puri’s parents for questioning in the Citibank fraud case.
The police took into its custody the Chief Finance Officer of the Hero Group and associates, Sanjay Gupta, on Monday for his alleged involvement in the Rs 300-crore Citibank scam.
According to the police, Gupta made a profit of Rs 20 crore through the scam by allegedly initiating staff of the Hero Group to invest money amounting to Rs 200 crore in his two firms - BG Finance and G2S Management Consultants.
Both Puri and Gupta allegedly had a deal to first get the money deposited in Gupta’s company, from where Puri would siphon it off to one of his ‘fake’ accounts.
The arrest came five days after Puri, who worked at the bank’s Gurgaon branch as a relationship manager, surrendered on December 30 after being accused of siphoning money from 20 accounts of high net worth individuals.
A case of cheating and forgery was registered against Puri and the others DLF Phase-II Police Station on Monday night after Citibank lodged a formal complaint.
Puri had opened three accounts in a Gurgaon branch in the names of his relatives. He had asked customers to deposit money in these accounts under a scheme that promised double returns. But once money was deposited, Puri transferred it into his own account.
The fraud came to light after the bank probed certain suspicious transactions based on documents allegedly forged by an employee. (ANI)
