CBI files ninth FIR against Parekh Aluminex in Rs 1,446 cr fraud case
New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation has registered a ninth FIR in connection with the Parekh Aluminex bank fraud cases, where the company is alleged to have defrauded multiple banks and financial institutions to the tune of Rs 1,446 crore, officials here said on Thursday.
It has been alleged that Mumbai-based Parekh Aluminex Ltd (PAL), an aluminium manufacturer, took out loans from nine banks and several financial institutions between 2004 and 2012 by providing false financial data and fabricating net sales in their balance sheets.
The country's premier investigative agency said the net sales shown in the balance sheets were created by "round-tripping loan proceeds through shell companies floated by the Director of the company and his associates, including relatives and friends."
CBI has named the company's chairman and managing director Amitabh Arun Parekh alongside his company in all of the nine FIRs, with the first one being registered in May 2017 and the latest one being filed on March 20 this year. This is despite the fact, that CMD Parekh passed away in 2013.
Speaking to the Millennium Post, officials said that even after his passing, Parekh remained his company's CMD on paper and given his death, the next director in line will be held responsible for the crimes committed by the company at large. Adding to the bank fraud charges, the agency said that Rs 468 crore of the loan proceeds were diverted to Kamlesh Kanungo's Kanungo Group of Companies, a major real estate developer in Mumbai, under the pretext of receiving machinery and raw materials from them.
Official sources said in addition to this, Kirti Kedia Group and JK Shah Group in Mumbai also received loan proceeds of Rs 513 crore and Rs 110 crore respectively, from shell companies floated by directors of PAL.
Based on the first FIR registered in the case, CBI conducted searches at six official and residential premises related to Kanungo, Kirti Kedia, and JK Shah Groups in and around Mumbai, from where several documents and hard disk pertaining to the case were recovered. The searches ended on Wednesday, agency sleuths said.
The CBI alleged that a sizeable amount of the proceeds diverted to the three groups were used in further real estate and other business investments. Some of the banks that were defrauded include Indian Overseas Bank, Corporation Bank, and Bank of Baroda. Officials said the fraud was discovered when these banks started reporting PAL's loan defaults after declaring their accounts as Non-Performing Assets.
