Another diamond trader cons PNB by forging property papers

 This one has some similarities to the Nirav Modi case. A senior employee of a diamond trading firm who aided his employer in fabricating property documents to secure an overdraft facility of Rs 1 crore and duped Punjab National Bank has been arrested by Mumbai police.

The banking unit of the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) on Wednesday arrested Yogesh Pujwani (59), a diamond assorter responsible for evaluating the quality of precious stones; they are now looking for his employer Amit Bipin Shah.

The complainant in the case is Divakar Prasad, a senior official from the asset recovery branch of the bank at Dalamal House at Nariman point. Prasad in his complaint has alleged that ASR Diamonds’ proprietor Shah had in 2008 applied for an overdraft facility by way of a mortgage with PNB’s Opera House branch.

Shah had submitted documents to an upmarket flat at Geeta Smruti housing society at Gamdevi. “Shah submitted the share certificate, registration agreement, and NOC from the soceity. The bank sent those documents for legal scrutiny and it gave a clearance,” said an officer.

Shah availed of the overdraft facility until 2009 when he began to default on his repayments. Shah's loan turned a non performing asset for the bank. In 2010 the bank wrote to Shah and when he failed to respond, it issued a notice warning it would attach his flat.

However, when PNB officials visited the flat, they found a family had been living there for two decades and they had never sold their flat to Amit Shah. The flat owner informed the PNB official that Shah had similarly duped ICICI Bank, Bajaj Finance and Citi Finance using the same documents; officials from these banks too had turned up to take the possession of the flat.

PNB officials then lodged a complaint with the DB Marg police. The case was transferred to EOW.

Omprakash Goenka businessman accused of ₹4,500cr investor fraud held

Bizman accused of ₹4,500cr investor fraud held

City businessman Omprakash Goenka who has been accused of defrauding around 18 lakh investors across the state of about Rs 4,500 crore has been arrested by Nashik cops from his Wadala office in one of the cheating cases. Goenka’s Royal Twinkle Star Club (RTSC) had allegedly lured investors with high returns. These investors were promised a total returns of around Rs 7,500 crore.

In August 2015, the securities and exchange board of India (Sebi) had imposed a fouryear ban on the firm and its four directors for illegally raising over Rs 2,656 crore in the garb of ‘time share’ holiday plans. The capital market regulator, which had been keeping a close watch on illicit money-pooling schemes, had directed the company to refund the money along with promised returns to the investors.

The Nashik (Rural) economic offences wing (EOW) police personnel picked up Goenka from his office on May 21 after a group of investors from Lasalgaon, near Malegaon, lodged a complaint saying they were cheated of Rs 1.8 crore by RTSC. While Goenka is the MD of RSTC, police are yet to arrest three directors. Goenka has been sent to police custody till May 31.

One of the victims, Kavita Pagar (38), a homemaker, said she had invested Rs 15 lakh she had saved over the years. “We have got around 1,200 to 1,300 investors so far. The have approached us,” said an officer from the Nashik EOW. The Mumbai EOW is also probing a separate case against RTSC office bearers for cheating thousands of investors. The Mumbai EOW has so far received over 500 complaint letters.

“The complaint was first registered at Mumbai’s Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Marg police station and later transferred to the EOW. The investors include farmers, labourers, teachers, government employees, businessmen and agents. The schemes—Crystal, Saffron, Gold, Silver, Bronze, Royal and Orange —continued from 2008 to 2016,” said a police officer.

RTSC ran such schemes across the country, said a police officer. In the Mumbai case, the complainant, who works as a manager at a liquor shop, was also an agent for the firm and had invested not only his own money, but also of his relatives and clients, said police.

“The accused had also promised hotel stay packages, based on the reward points, to the investors. We have booked the accused under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and stringent law Maharashtra Protection of Interest of Depositors’ Act,” added an officer.

The EOW had early this year carried out searches at six places in Mumbai.