Taking major action in the fake bank guarantee scam of more than Rs 100 crore, ED has arrested Amarnath Dutta, a resident of Kolkata. This case is related to submission of fake bank guarantee to Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) on behalf of a subsidiary company of Reliance Power Ltd. ED arrested Amarnath Dutta on 6 November under money laundering charges.
The agency says that Dutta had described himself as a trade finance consultant, but in reality he was playing an important role in this entire fraud. He along with former CFO of Reliance Power Ashok Pal and Partha Sarathi Biswal had prepared fake bank guarantees.
ED presented Amarnath Dutta in Patiala House Court of Delhi, from where the court has sent him to ED custody for four days. This matter came to light when SECI got the bank guarantee deposited by an associate company of Reliance Power investigated and it was found that it was completely fake.
SECI had lodged an FIR in this matter in the Economic Offenses Wing of Delhi Police. Later, ED started investigating money laundering on the basis of this FIR. Investigation revealed that Reliance Power company had given fake bank guarantees and fake bank confirmation letters worth Rs 68 crore. Due to this SECI suffered a loss of more than Rs 100 crore.
Revealed in ED investigation
ED investigation has revealed that the accused people created a spoof email domain to use the identity of SBI. sbi.17313@s-bi.co.in. So that SECI can be assured that the bank guarantee is genuine.
Not only this, many more fake bank domains have also been found in the investigation, such as –
lndiabank.in
- lndusindbank.in
- pnblndia.in
- psdbank.co.in
- siliguripnb.co.in
- lobbank.co.in
- unionbankofIndia.co.in
The names of all these websites are similar to those of real banks, but minor changes in one or two letters have been deliberately made in them, so that no one gets suspicious.
ED has made three arrests so far
ED has so far made three arrests in this case, which are as follows:
- Parth Sarathi Biswal, MD, M/s Biswal Tradelink Pvt. Ltd. (first arrest)
- Ashok Kumar Pal, former CFO, Reliance Power Ltd. (second arrest)
- Amarnath Dutta, finance consultant (third arrest)
ED is now trying to find out where the money from this scam was used, who were the people involved in it, and who benefited from this fraud.
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