City Limouzine Investment finance fraud

Zomato has acquired a 16.66% stake in Mukunda Foods for $5 million and granted a loan of $150 million to Blinkit, an online shopping platform.

Indian food-delivery firm Zomato Ltd's board has approved the acquisition of a 16.66% stake in Mukunda Foods, a food robotics company, for $5 million and granted a loan of $150 million to Blinkit, an online shopping platform.

From cooking-making to burger-flipping, many foods and beverage businesses are beginning to discover the benefits of robots to improve their productivity. 

Mukunda is a food robotics company that helps automate food preparation at restaurants by designing and manufacturing intelligent robotic equipment.

Zomato said, "our investment will help Mukunda Foods scale faster, help reduce restaurant food prices, expand margins, and enhance customer delight."

Zomato, in a disclosure filing with the National Stock Exchange in compliance with the Securities and Exchange Board of India regulations, said the company's board of directors at a meeting on March 15, 2022, has approved the acquisition of a 16.66 per cent stake in Mukunda Foods for an aggregate cash purchase of $5 million and grant a loan of $150 million to Blinkit, with the terms of the loan to be decided at a future date.

Formerly known as Grofers, Blinkit rebranded itself late last year as its CEO promised to speed up deliveries of everything from groceries to electronics in a burgeoning market dominated by Walmart's Flipkart and Amazon's local unit.

 Hanuman Chalisa Ok But No Home Food In Jail: Court To Chitra Ramkrishna

Chitra Ramkrishna had moved a petition seeking bail, contending that the agency does not seek her custody any more.

New Delhi: Former National Stock Exchange (NSE) chief Chitra Ramkrishna, accused of being involved in grave lapses at India's largest stock market -- including sharing confidential information with an individual she dubbed a "Himalayan yogi" -- has been sent to jail for 14 days. The 59-year-old, who has been heading the NSE since 2013, was arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation on February 24 after days of questioning in what has been dubbed the market manipulation scam. 

The case -- involving an unfair advantage in trading to some brokers -- was filed in 2018. The agency is investigating allegations of information leak from the computer servers of the market exchanges to stockbrokers in what has come to be known as the "co-location scam". 

Chitra Ramkrishna had moved a petition seeking bail, contending that the agency does not seek her custody any more. 

But the CBI opposed it, arguing that she is an influential person and the investigation is still in progress on her foreign visits and other aspects of the case. "Hence we want her to be sent to judicial custody," the agency argued.  

The court approved jail custody, and later rejected her request for home food and other amenities. 

"Every prisoner is the same. She can't be a VIP prisoner because of what she had been. Rules can't be changed," judge Sanjeev Aggarwal said, as her counsel pressed for special facilities inside the jail. 

The court, however, allowed her to carry a copy of a prayer books, the Hanuman Chalisa and Bhagwad Gita.  

Ms Ramkrishna was arrested by the CBI after nearly four years of investigation against a Delhi-based stockbroker. The arrest came after market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) released a report, indicating alleged misuse of power by the top management of the NSE. 

The report said Ms Ramkrishna was guided by a mysterious "Himalayan Yogi" in all personal and professional matters for around 20 years. The "yogi" was later revealed to be Anand Subramanian, a former stock exchange official arrested in a market manipulation case. 

 They are among the 160 accused charge-sheeted by the CBI in its supplementary charge-sheet in Vyapam PMT 2013 scam filed in a special CBI court at Bhopal recently. (Representative image)

BHOPAL/JABALPUR: A division bench of MP High Court on Friday granted anticipatory bail to seven people including directors of three private medical colleges charge-sheeted by CBI in Vyapam PMT scam- 2013.

Those granted bail include Dr Ajay Goenka of Chirayu Medical College, S N Vijayvargiya of Peoples' Medical College, Suresh Singh Bhadoriya of Index Medical college, Dr Virendra Mohan, Dr Ravi Saxena, Dr Vijay Kumar and Arun Kumar Arora. They are among the 160 accused charge-sheeted by the CBI in its supplementary charge-sheet in Vyapam PMT 2013 scam filed in a special CBI court at Bhopal recently.

Counsels for the accused argued that investigation into the case had begun in 2015 and their clients have been charge-sheeted 7 years later though charge-sheets into the PMT scam-2013 have been filed in the past as well. They also referred to the age of the accused during arguments as a ground for granting them anticipatory bail.

Following arguments in the matter, the division bench of Justice Sheel Nagu and Justice M S Bhatti allowed the bail application. Senior advocate Ajay Gupta and Anil Khare appeared in the case for the accused.

 Mangaluru: The Mangalore University (MU) syndicate meeting held on Friday, has passed a resolution to conduct a probe by a retired high court judge, with regard to irregularities in solar system, CCTVs and biometrics facilities.

Syndicate member Ramesh K, said that CCTV cameras and biometric systems have been introduced at the MU Campus in Konaje, PG centre in Chikka Aluvara in Kodagu and University College in Hampankatta. Biometrics facilities were installed at the Konaje campus and PG centre in Chikka Aluvara. MU spent a total Rs 2 crore on these. MU also spent Rs 2.2 crore, to install rooftop solar panels at its campus in Konaje, but now it remains defunct. A committee was set up to conduct an inquiry, and it found several irregularities.

Based on the committee report, MU syndicate members had complained to the governor of Karnataka, as well as higher education department. The governor, who is also the chancellor of MU, had directed the state government to take a call on the issue. “The state government’s recent letter stressed for a thorough probe by a former judge of the high court. The same was discussed at a syndicate meeting held on Friday, and the members passed a resolution to conduct a probe by a retired HC judge,” Ramesh said.

The solar probe committee was headed by the director of the computer centre, MU, and six others. The report concluded that the committee has observed that none of the solar lighting installations, and the solar water heating installations were in working condition, except one water heater in the Cauvery guest house. The CCTV probe committee found that many of them were malfunctioning, and were not maintained well. Meanwhile, P S Yadapadithaya, vice-chancellor, said as per the current plan, the university has decided to restore these malfunctioning projects. The first plan is to restore the entire solar system that is not working. Secondly, CCTVs and biometric attendance system will be restored. We will call a tender to fix these facilities at the earliest, he said.

‘Submit land records’

The allegations regarding encroachments on public land belonging to the MU in Konaje and Ashoknagar, was also discussed during the syndicate meeting. Vivekananda Paniyala, advocate and syndicate member, who raised the issue, has requested the MU registrar to submit a detailed report on MU land, during the next syndicate meeting scheduled on March 29. He warned of legal action if details are not provided.

 LUCKNOW: The Lucknow bench of Allahabad High Court on Friday granted bail to former UP minister Azam Khan in connection with UP Jal Nigam recruitment scam.

Passing the order, the court observed that the state counsel failed to point out any clinching evidence from the chargesheet regarding active participation of Khan in the scam. The state counsel also could not point out that Khan committed any misappropriation or financial irregularity in the scam, the court added.

Justice Ramesh Sinha said, “In view of this court, the continued custody of Khan, prima facie, may not be necessary for the purpose of further investigation and trial in the instant case.”

In the course of hearing it also came out that as many as 87 cases were lodged against Khan and in all cases he had obtained bail, except two cases, including the present one in which he had been in jail since November 19, 2020.

SIT had booked Khan in the scam for committing irregularity in appointment of 1300 recruits during Akhilesh Yadav government.

 LUDHIANA: Enforcement Directorate’s zonal office Chandigarh has arrested one person in connection with a Rs 50 crore Ponzi scheme scam run by a Hisar-based company that looted thousands of investors across India.

The accused is alleged to have siphoned off the funds from the accounts of the company to purchase properties.

The accused is alleged to have siphoned off the funds from the accounts of the company to purchase properties, jewellery, and shares of high-net-worth shell companies. After being arrested he has produced in a court which has remanded him into ED’s custody for five days.

According to a statement released by ED headquarters New Delhi, "ED has arrested Pranjil Batra under the Prevention of Money-laundering Act (PMLA) 2002 on March 10th, 2022 in the case of Hisar based company namely M/s Future Makers Life Care Private Limited and Others related to cheating of thousands of depositors through various Ponzi schemes in many parts of the country. ED initiated its investigation by recording a Money-laundering case on the basis of various FIRs registered in the state of Haryana and Telangana. Ponzi schemes run by the group were based on a pyramidal structure where the persons at the top of the pyramid gained at the behest of the loss borne by the persons at base of the pyramid”

The statement also said, "Pranjil Batra, who looked after software of the company, siphoned off funds over Rs. 50 crore from the accounts of Future Makers Group by creating faking IDs and using bank accounts of his family members, close associates, and shell companies. He used the siphoned-off funds, which are proceeds of crime, in the purchase of properties, jewellery, and shares of high-net-worth shell companies. He sold some of the immovable properties acquired from proceeds of crime to the entities controlled by him to project them untainted. During the investigation, Pranjil Batra was non-cooperative and resorted to withholding of relevant information and misleading the investigation. He was arrested on March 10th under PMLA, 2002. He was produced before Hon’ble Special Court, Haryana on March 11th, 2022 and has been remanded in ED custody for 5 days , further investigation is in progress”

 Synopsis

Claiming that Ramkrishna was involved in "various malpractices", the agency told the court that it was investigating these trips to examine whether they had gained any pecuniary advantage. It also said Subramanian had impersonated as the so-called Himalayan yogi and influenced the decisions of Ramkrishna at the NSE.

Earlier this week, the CBI told the court that it had constituted a special investigation team comprising nearly 30 officials, including senior officers, to investigate the alleged stock market manipulation case.

The Central Bureau of Investigation on Friday told a local court that former National Stock Exchange chief executive Chitra Ramkrishna and her then adviser Anand Subramanian together travelled to several tax havens including the Seychelles and Mauritius during their tenure at the bourse.

Claiming that Ramkrishna was involved in "various malpractices", the agency told the court that it was investigating these trips to examine whether they had gained any pecuniary advantage. It also said Subramanian had impersonated as the so-called Himalayan yogi and influenced the decisions of Ramkrishna at the NSE.

According to the CBI, Subramanian thought that he would operate as the Himalayan yogi for four years and no one would find out.

probe-on

There is evidence that establishes that Subramanian had created the email ID rigyajursama@outlook.com, where Ramkrishna had sent confidential company information, the CBI told the court.

It alleged that in a bid to destroy evidence, Subramanian deleted some of the crucial emails. The agency claims to have recovered 832 GB of data. The CBI also informed the court that it had written to Microsoft to retrieve deleted emails and data.

This was submitted by the agency on Friday while opposing the bail plea of Subramanian, who is currently in Delhi's Tihar jail. Subramanian's lawyer denied CBI's claim that he was the Himalayan yogi.

After recording submissions of both sides, the court reserved its order on the bail plea.

Subramanian was quizzed exhaustively by the CBI in its custody. He was also confronted with Ramkrishna. The CBI has alleged that Subramanian had remained evasive and tried to mislead the agency. As reported by ET, Ramkrishna has maintained in her questioning that she was steered by the yogi, her spiritual guru, with whom she had shared confidential information related to the exchange.

Earlier this week, the CBI told the court that it had constituted a special investigation team comprising nearly 30 officials, including senior officers, to investigate the alleged stock market manipulation case.

Executives of the National Stock Exchange including former managing director Ravi Narain have already been quizzed as part of its probe, the CBI had said. It is also investigating possible roles of Securities and Exchange Board of India officials.

Meanwhile, 11 more accused who were involved in the racket are still absconding.

Noida Police have busted a fake MBBS admission racket operating in the city and arrested five persons, including three women, in this connection, an official said on Wednesday. The accused, identified as Dipesh, Avnish Srivastava, Divya Mishra, Kanika Ojha alias Kavita and Nidhi Marwa were arrested from Sector 62 here.

Meanwhile, 11 more accused who were involved in the racket are still absconding. They were identified as Shashikant, Kundan Kumar, Arnav Singh, Hira Lal, Ritu Gupta, Shailendra, Ujjwal Singh, Ritesh Singh, Kuldeep, Harsh Tomar and Nandini. 

According to the police, all the aforementioned people, who were part of the fake admission racket, used to promise people to get their wards admitted to several medical colleges in the country. "They used to collect hefty amounts from the gullible people," a police officer said. During questioning, the arrested individuals confessed to the crime and accepted that they had recently duped "two parties" to the tune of Rs 36.5 lakh.

An FIR has been registered under sections 419 (Punishment for cheating by personation), 420 (Cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 467 (Forgery of valuable security, will, etc), 468 (Forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (Using as genuine a forged document or electronic record) of the Indian Penal Code and 66 D of the IT act against the accused. "Searches are on to nab the absconding accused," the police officer added.

The look out notices have been issued to prevent them from leaving the country, officials said.

The CBI on Tuesday said it has issued look out notices against Rishi Kamlesh Agarwal, the former chairman and managing director of ABG Shipyard, and eight others in a bank fraud case of over Rs 22,842 crore. The agency in a statement said Look Out Circulars (LOCs) have already been opened by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against the accused, while maintaining that the accused have been located in India. The look out notices have been issued to prevent them from leaving the country, officials said.

The State Bank of India (SBI) had also opened LOC against the main accused in 2019. The CBI has booked ABG Shipyard Ltd and its then chairman and managing director Rishi Kamlesh Agarwal along with others for allegedly cheating a consortium of banks of over Rs 22,842 crore. The agency has also named the then executive director Santhanam Muthaswamy, directors Ashwini Kumar, Sushil Kumar Agarwal and Ravi Vimal Nevetia and another company ABG International Pvt Ltd for alleged offences of criminal conspiracy, cheating, criminal breach of trust and abuse of official position under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Prevention of Corruption Act, they said.

In continuation of the investigation, the CBI conducted searches at 13 locations on February 12. The officials claimed they had received several incriminating documents, such as books of accounts of the accused borrower company, which was being scrutinised. The bank had first filed a complaint on November 8, 2019 on which the central investigation agency had sought some clarifications on March 12, 2020. The bank filed a fresh complaint in August that year. After "scrutinising" for over one- and-a-half-years, the CBI acted on the complaint, filing an FIR on February 7, 2022.

The officials said the case was big with voluminous data and records as 28 banks were involved and needed verification before moving with an FIR. They said the company had allegedly diverted funds to lot of firms which also needed detailed scrutiny. "We did not want to leave any loophole before proceeding with a regular case. We ensured a detailed pre-verification is done on all the aspects before we register an FIR," a senior official said on the condition of anonymity when asked about time taken to file the case. The company was sanctioned credit facilities from 28 banks and financial institutions led by ICICI Bank, with the SBI, having exposure of Rs 2,468.51 crore, they said.

A forensic audit by Ernst and Young has shown that between 2012-17, the accused colluded together and committed illegal activities, including diversion of funds, misappropriation and criminal breach of trust, they said. It is the biggest bank fraud case registered by the CBI. Funds were used for purposes other than for which they were released by banks, it said. The loan account was declared a non-performing asset (NPA) in July, 2016 and a fraud in 2019. In its complaint, the SBI said ABG Shipyard Ltd (ABGSL) is the flagship company of the ABG Group which engaged in the business of ship building and ship-repair.

The ABGSL, being a major player in Indian ship-building industry, operates from shipyards that are located at Dahej and Surat in Gujarat, with a capacity to build vessels up to 18,000 dead weight tonnage (DWT) at Surat Shipyard and 1,20,000 dead weight tonnage (DWT) at Dahej Shipyard. The company has constructed over 165 vessels (including 46 for export market) in the last 16 years, including specialised vessels like the newsprint carriers. Self-discharging and loading bulk cement carriers, floating cranes etc with class approval of all international classification societies like Lloyds, American Bureau of Shipping, Bureau Veritas, IRS, DNV, the complaint said.

"Global crisis has impacted the shipping industry due to fall in commodity demand and prices and subsequent fall in cargo demand. The cancellation of contracts for few ships and vessels resulted in piling up of inventory. This has resulted in paucity of working capital and caused significant increase in the operating cycle, thereby aggravating the liquidity problem and financial problem," the complaint said. The SBI said there was no demand of commercial vessels as the industry was going through a downturn even in 2015 which was further aggravated due to lack of defence orders, making it difficult for the company to maintain repayment schedule, it said. "The company has been referred to NCLT, Ahmedabad, by ICICI Bank for CIRP," it said. 

 These frauds take place when a person leaves a company to join another. One is advised to report such frauds immediately to the police station,

PF Alert! Want your EPFO account to be safe? Follow these rules 

The Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has issued an alert to all account holders and have urged them to not share their information like their account number, passwords, safe on social media or other individuals. 

The notification was issued to keep the account holders safe from falling prey to any fraudsters who can use the money for their benefit. 

Account-holders should know that EPFO ​​never asks for Aadhaar, PAN, UAN, bank details from its members. If someone asks for information on the phone or social media, be careful and do not reply to such people, instead report them immediately to the nearest police station. 

EPFO took to Twitter to share this information. The tweet said, "Never ask its members to share personal details like Aadhaar, PAN, UAN, Bank Account or OTP over the phone or social media." The tweet further said that the EPFO ​​never asks to deposit any amount through WhatsApp, social media etc. 

Never share this information to keep your account safe: 

- PAN number

- Aadhaar number

- UAN

- PF account number

Mostly, these frauds are seen when a person leaves one company to join another. If this happens to you, then you should immediately report to the police station with all the details.