CBI raids 10 cities in Rs184 cr in bank fraud case

The CBI on Wednesday conducted searches in 10 cities across five states as part of a probe against Kolkata-based Ramsarup Industries group accused of cheating the United Bank of India of Rs 184.43 crore.

The searches were carried out at Kolkata, Nagpur, Gurgaon in Haryana, Jamshedpur in Jharkhand and Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh.

The Central Bureau of Investigation registered the case on Monday night against the promoters and directors of Ramsarup Industries Limited: Ashish Jhunjhunwala, Naveen Gupta, Ayush Lohia, Lalit Mohan Chatterjee and Bimal K Jhunjhunwala on a complaint of the bank.

The General Manager of IDBI, Debashish Sarkar (a former UBI employee), former Executive Director of Vijaya Bank Mohd Shahid and a retired IAS officer, Krishan Murari Lal, have also been named in the CBI case.

The nine directors of the company have been booked on charges of criminal conspiracy under Section 120B of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and cheating under Section 420 of the IPC.

The CBI officers have searched the office premises of the group and houses of some of the directors at 10 different locations.

The UBI authorities had lodged a complaint alleging that the directors have cheated the Corporate Finance Branch of the bank in Kolkata of Rs 184.43 crore.

After preliminary investigation, the CBI officers came to know that Rs 130.95 crore of the total amount that was taken as loan was diverted to a group of companies — RAV Dravya Private Limited — which is also based in the city. Mpost