On Thursday (February 22), the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) registered a case at the instance of OBC against diamond jewellery exporting firm Dwarka Das Seth International for an alleged bank loan fraud of Rs 389.85 crore.
After the PNB and the Bank of Baroda, it was the OBC that rushed to the CBI with its complaints of fraud, leading to the agency filing. In fact, CBI filed a total of three separate cases. While the first one belonged to Oriental Bank of Commerce, the other two pertained to the complaints from Bank of Maharashtra and PNB's Barmer office.
The OBC has alleged that it was defrauded by Dwarka Das Seth International and its owner Sabhya Seth. The loans turned into non-performing assets (NPAs) way back in 2014, but the bank approached the agency on August 16 last year, after the company had folded up and Seth fled the country.
The CBI has started tracing India-based directors and partners of the company.
The OBC complaint has alleged that Dwarka Das Seth International took loans by way of letters of credit and other such credit facilities for gold jewellery export/import between 2007 and 2012 but failed to pay back.
A probe by the bank found that the company had indulged in round-tripping of funds through fictitious companies abroad and had utilised funds by discounting bills based on the letters of credit of foreign banks, which were either non-existent or had negative ratings.
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