AGM among two held for duping PNB of Rs 7.5cr using fake documents

NEW DELHI: The economic offences wing of Delhi Police has arrested an assistant general manager (

AGM

) of Punjab National Bank and the owner of a city-based bar and lounge for duping the bank of Rs 7.5 crore. The loaned amount was used to bail out the owner of the bar that had shut down last year.


The account used for the fraud was opened at PNB’s Brady House branch in Mumbai. When the accused learnt about the probe against fugitive diamond trader Nirav Modi, they switched off their mobile phones and changed their addresses fearing that their fraud would also be detected.

Additional CP, (EOW) Suvashish Choudhary said that the bank had lodged a police complaint in June 2017 about loans being taken using fabricated documents. The assets mentioned in the documents never existed.

An inquiry revealed that the accountholders had never visited the Mumbai branch and all the formalities for opening the accounts were facilitated in Delhi by the AGM, P K Varun, by violating the standard operating procedures of the bank. He had prepared false revenue records of the accountholders to sanction the loans.

The accountholders were connected to the bar-lounge owner, Ajay Sharma. Even Varun’s son owned a 20% stake in the lounge. “During interrogation, Sharma revealed the roles of the AGM and two others who had opened shell companies to get the loans,” said additional CP, Choudhary.

Sharma and Varun had planned to revive the bar and lounge using the loan. Sharma asked his friends, Amarjeet Singh and Suresh, to open accounts at PNB’s Mayur Vihar branch. The manager of this branch helped them open an account in the name of Sarita using fake documents.

A loan of Rs 50 lakh was then taken and Rs 49.9 lakh was withdrawn in cash. This amount was used for setting up a temporary factory at Surajpur in

Greater Noida

. The factory was mortgaged to get more loans.

Suresh and Amarjeet opened a shell company named Ply Mouth Ventures based in Mumbai, took a loan of Rs 5 crore from the Brady House branch, transferred the money into their account and withdrew it. They also took an overdraft of Rs 2 crore and transferred it into another account. They provided sale deeds of properties in Delhi as collateral. However, verification revealed that the properties never existed.

Cops found that during verification visits, the bank officials prepared a false site visit report of the properties. A manhunt has been launched to nab the managers of the Mayur Vihar and Brady House branches. A case of cheating and impersonation has been registered against Varun, Ajay Sharma, Amarjeet Singh and Suresh.