The Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (MMRDA) on Wednesday lodged a complaint with the Mumbai police that its Fixed Deposits (FDs) to the tune of Rs. 70 crore had been misappropriated.
The complaint follows a probe by the Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of the Mumbai police into an alleged multi-crore Fixed Deposit (FD) and cash-credit scam.
Last week, the EOW had arrested a Mumbai-based hotelier and chairman of Showman group, Mohammed Faish, in connection with the case. According to the police, Faish along with other accused Santosh Ghadge, Roy Joseph and B Vimal allegedly duped over a dozen of trusts and government agencies including MMRDA, Mahatma Phule Backward Class Development Corporation Limited (MphuleBCDC), Maharashtra Tourism Developmental Authority (MTDC), Agriculture Produce Market Authority (APMC), and allegedly misappropriated their funds deposited in FDs.
"An FIR has been lodged against unknown persons. We are probing the role of the bank officials attached to the Malabar Hill branch of a nationalised bank ," a senior EOW officer told this reporter. MMRDA is said to hold Rs. 350 crore as FDs with different banks in Maharashtra.
On Wednesday, the police arrested Faish's accomplice, Roy Joseph, from Pune. The police claim he was the alleged mastermind in duping the South Indian Education Society (SIES) trust, the first complainant in the case.
Last month, the SIES trust, a prominent educational institute, had lodged a complaint with the Mumbai police claiming that Rs.39 crore of its FDs had been was siphoned off.
The scam was unearthed after a Navi Mumbai branch of Bank of India got in touch with the SIES to confirm if the trust had asked for cash-credit. The bank informed them that Rs 5.52 crore had already been withdrawn using the cash-credit facility. The trust subsequently lodged a complaint with the EOW.
The police investigation found that an agency run by Roy had approached the SIES trust to get its FDs deposited at various banks. The accused allegedly connived with various bank officials and opened overdraft accounts (linked to FDs) without keeping the client in the loop. The funds from the FD accounts were than siphoned off. The same modus operandi was allegedly used to dupe other clients.
"The modus operandi employed was to lure clients with higher interests than being offered by the banks. The accused used give a fake copy of the Fixed Deposit certificate issued by the banks to their clients and kept the originals with them. The originals receipts were then used to open overdraft accounts from which they withdrew the amounts deposited in FD accounts," a senior police officer told The Hindu .
The police are pegging the scam at over Rs 1,000 crore.
