Company director arrested for swindling Rs 345 crore

NEW DELHI: The Delhi Police's Economic Offences Wing (EOW) has arrested Awanish Kumar Mishra, Director of Allied Financial Services Pvt Ltd (AFSPL) for alleged misappropriation of funds to the tune of Rs 345 crore.

An official said Mishra had forged the signatures of the authorised signatories of the complainant company to carry out the fraud.

The EOW had registered a case under the sections of criminal conspiracy, cheating and fraud against Mishra on March 26, this year on the complaint of Sanjeev Gemawat, Executive Director of Dalmia Cement.

Gemawat registered the case alleging that AFSPL, Money Mishra Overseas Pvt Ltd, National Securities Depository Ltd (NSDL) and IL&FS Securities Services Ltd (ISSL) have duped them. In the complaint to the police, Gemawat said that Dalmia Cement was holding securities or mutual funds worth Rs 344.07 crore in two Demat accounts with AFSPL. These were allegedly fraudulently transferred on forged documents and pledged with another company.

In his complaint, Gemawat alleged, "Our erstwhile subsidiaries, OCL India Limited (OCL) and Dalmia Cement East Limited (DCEL) were interested in making mutual fund investments in 2017. We availed the services of NSDL and its participant AFSPL. Accordingly, we opened our Demat accounts in the name of DCEL."

"After making the initial investment, several further investments and redemption were made from our Demat accounts and we were holding securities worth around Rs 344.07 crore in these accounts. AFSPL also sent periodic statement of our accounts and kept us informed of the current status of our accounts," Gemawat said in the complaint.

"We decided to redeem our securities and submitted redemption requests on December 27 last year to AFSPL. In response, they informed us that our request of redemption had been sent to the clearing agent ISSL, who did not release the same on time," he said in the complaint.

It has been further alleged that despite receiving assurance on redemption after their e-mail request for the same, AFSPL did not honour them.

"After some time, we approached NSDL and they informed us on January 17 that there were no securities available in our Demat accounts. However, the Director of AFSPL simultaneously sent an e-mail on January 31 where he had confirmed that we are holding securities in our two Demat accounts," the complaint read.