Punjab National Bank detects $1.77 bn fraud; suspends 10 officers |
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Punjab National Bank said that it has detected a USD 1(point)77 billion scams in which billionaire jeweller Nirav Modi allegedly acquired fraudulent letters of undertaking from one of its branches for overseas credit from other Indian lenders. PNB has suspended 10 officers in this scam and referred the matter to CBI for investigation.
Financial Services Secretary Rajiv Kumar said this seems to be an isolated case and is not going to impact other lenders. He also said that the finance ministry has taken proactive steps by asking the lender to report the matter to CBI and Enforcement Directorate so that action can be taken quickly.
The Bank has detected some fraudulent and unauthorized transactions in one of its branches in Mumbai for the benefit of a few select account holders with their apparent connivance. Based on these transactions other banks appear to have advanced money to these customers abroad.
Kumar said that the investigation is a part of the cleanup drive that started with Asset Quality Review in 2015. Post clean up, this is going to make banks clean forever, healthy, responsive and enable them to provide hassle-free banking to all honest borrowers.This could be the biggest banking fraud in India as its quantum was bigger than an estimated 9,000 crore scam at erstwhile Satyam Computers.
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