Accused’s modus operandi ‘revealed’

Mumbai: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)’s chargesheet in the Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam revealed the modus operandi used by the accused to dupe the nationalised bank. Accused jeweller Nirav Modi had allegedly used maximum funds to repay his debts, while the remaining money was used for personal expenses.

The money was raised via 143 fraudulent letters of undertaking (LoUs) issued by then deputy manager Gokulnath Shetty and junior officer Manoj Kharat of PNB asking the Hong Kong branches of other public banks to pay.

The probe later revealed that the LoUs could not be issued for more than 90 days however most of the 143 LoUs were for 360 days in contradiction to RBI guidelines. Those banks ended up honouring these LOUs. ED, which is probing the scam’s money-laundering aspect, learnt that Shetty was not promoted all these years specifically to aide the Modi group of companies.

The three other PNB officers who were arrested from the tainted Brady House branch were Bechhu Tiwari, chief manager, in charge of the forex department; Yashwant Joshi, Scale II - manager, forex department; and Praful Sawant, scale I officer, export. They were all part of the three-layered supervisory security apparatus that failed to raise alarm. They were responsible for keeping a tab on Shetty and the Swift messaging system along with the Core Banking System entries.  However, all three were part of the racket and did not take any action or raised an alarm despite knowing about Shetty’s illegal activities.

“The chargesheet was filed against partner of three private firms (including two Diamond firms) based at Mumbai; his brother (also partner of said private firms); their three private firms based at Mumbai; seven employees-associates and one Chartered Accountant of said firms.