Hero group official held in Citibank fraud case

Hero group?s vice-president of corporate services Sanjay Gupta was on Monday arrested by Gurgaon Police in connection with the multi-crore Citibank fraud case.

Gurgaon Police Commissioner SS Deswal said Gupta was last week questioned by the police and the prime accused in the fraud case, Shivraj Puri, had stated in his confessional statement that Gupta knew about the forged SEBI letter.

Gupta has been remanded in five days police custody by the Chief Judicial Magistrate-cum-Additional Civil Judge (Senior Division).

Gupta is facing allegations of investing about Rs 250 crore belonging to promoters of the group companies.

“Gupta had invested around Rs 250 crore from different Hero Group companies and their promoters. For this, Gupta had formed two finance companies — BG Finance and G2S, and took commission of Rs 20 crore from Puri for investing the amount,” Deswal said.

Gupta’s counsel C L Kakkar has pleaded not guilty before the Court and said that Gupta is a victim and he could turn a witness if required.

Citibank employee Shivraj Puri, who allegedly scammed about Rs 400 crore from 20 high profile accounts while working at the bank’s Gurgaon branch, was taken into police custody on Thursday (December 30).

Puri, a customer service executive, is accused of defrauding top clients by promising high-return investment schemes which in reality were non-existent. The loot was then transferred to fictitious accounts.

Cases of cheating and forgery have been charged against Puri.

The scam comes close on the heels of the bribery-for-loan racket unearthed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) which led to arrests of senior officials of a number of banks and finance institutions.

The officials of organisations, including LIC Housing Finance, Bank of India and Central Bank of India, are said to have taken bribes for sanctioning heavy corporate loans bypassing protocol.