Thursday, February 23, 2012

BLACK BANKS

Money is blatantly swindled through fake loan accounts

Fraudulent accounts and loans against property are not just mere imagination of script writers but actually a widely practiced scam in India. Small and discreet nexus of bank officials and corporate (and individuals) play hand in gloves when it comes to banking frauds. Lately, banking loans discrepancies (especially in the real estate sector) have been creating flutters in India’s financial market involving a number of public sector banks and other financial institutions.

Two years back, Bank of India, Punjab National Bank and LIC Housing Finance were allegedly bribed by a Mumbai-based private sector organization called Money Matters which acted as a middleman to a number of private sector companies (mostly in the real estate sector) with irregularities overriding the stipulated conditions. Consequently, five top management employees from these organizations were arrested by CBI. Additionally, CBI conducted raids in five different cities to zero in to the accused. They found some incriminating documents and taped conversations revealing that Rajesh Sharma (CMD of Money Matters) allegedly paid a bribe of Rs 25 lakhs to RN Tayal (of Bank of India) for corporate loans of Rs 500 crores to two separate companies.

Furthermore, RBI has unearthed a fraud case involving Citibank in Gurgaon in January 2011. Shivraj Puri, an executive of the bank, deluded his customers to invest in false accounts to the tune of Rs 300 crores. The Hero Group, Religare and Bonanza were some of the investors in this fraud scheme.

In October 2011, Madhavpura police station in Ahmedabad arrested a loan agent and four officials of Adarsh Cooperative Bank for a fraudulent case involving money borrowed for car loans. Several crores of rupees were borrowed from anationalized bank by the loan agent on false accounts and later siphoned the money in a bogus account in Adarsh Cooperative Bank – with the help of a few bank officials! In another similar incident, a car loan scam involving Rs 1.07 crores took place in Thane on October 2010. Fake documents were submitted to cheat three cooperative banks. In 2010 again, another incident (in Kolkata) fake documentswere produced in Canara Bank to obtain loan to the tune Rs 9.14 crores.

Providing false documents by fraudsters have become almost an everyday affair! Such activity not only allows fraudulent and bogus companies (and phantom individuals too) to float in the market but also helps many companies in spinningmoney from one account to another – most of the time, both the accounts are fake. It also allows them to create black money under the garb of loans wherein the assets itself doesn’t exist!

All in all, thousands of such cases of fraud accounts and irrational bank loans (to real estate dealers) in exchange of a fixed percentage by bank officials are overlooked and most of the time never gets unearthed! Bank loans against and for bogus property and assets are the fastest and most convenient way of swindling money. In such case neither the money received by the bank officials nor money received by the recipient are accountable. And above all, this money is not of anyone else but millions of middle class families who keep their money as savings in banks. If one goes by the sheer intensity if such cases one can easily find a mini Swiss Bank in each city of India!

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