CBI questions four top employees of Nirav Modi-owned company; ED raids 39 locations
The CBI arrested three officers of Punjab National Bank’s (PNB) Brady house branch in Mumbai on Monday evening in connection with Nirav Modi scam. These are in addition to the three earlier arrests. The arrested accused have been identified as Bechhu Tiwari, Chief Manager, in charge of Forex department; Yashwant Joshi, manager in Forex department and Praful Sawant, officer export. They were all aware of the illegal activities carried out in the branch by then Deputy Manager Gokulnath Shetty and were part of the conspiracy.
CBI also questioned four top employees of Modi’s company Firestar Diamond International Pvt. Ltd and 13 serving and retired PNB officials on Monday into the alleged scam worth Rs 11,400 core.
CBI said Tiwari was responsible for supervising the work of Shetty and his manager to ensure entry of authorised swift messages only from the system and had full knowledge of Shetty’s activities. On the other hand, Joshi was responsible for supervising Shetty and ensure daily reports of swift and Core Banking Services entries. He too had full knowledge of the activities of Shetty but took no action. Savant was responsible for checking the SWIFT messages daily and report.
“Searches have begun at their residences in Navi Mumbai, Andheri, Dombivili. Lower Parel,” the CBI said.
The agency is questioning Vipul Ambani, Vice President finance, Ravi Gupta, Chief Financial officer, Saurabh Sharma, President, International Finance and Subhash Parab, DGM Finance of Firestar Diamond International Pvt. Ltd to unravel the entire fraud that took place with the help of PNB employees. Vipul Ambani, a close relative of late Dhirubhai Ambani, is working for Firestar since 2014.
The agency also conducted searches at the Brady House branch for the second consecutive day and sealed it. While CBI is scrutinising the details of Letters of Undertaking and Letters of Credit submitted by PNB in the past few days, PNB’s head office too has scrutinised its LoUs and submitted a report to the CBI.
On the other hand, the ED carried out raids at 39 locations across the country, including 10 locations in Maharashtra like Mumbai, Pune, Thane and Navi Mumbai. Agency chief Karnal Singh said they were taking all steps to seize properties of the accused. The agency seized properties worth Rs 22 crore on Monday.
CVC gives PNB 10 days to come clean
Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) on Monday questioned PNB and the Finance Ministry officials to submit a report on how Niravgate took place despite monetary regulations in place. PNB has 10 days to come clean as officials of PNB, RBI and Department of Financial Services gave a two-hour presentation to the CVC. To pin responsibility, the vigilance watchdog has asked involved officials to be identified.
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