The CBI probe into alleged overseas remittances of over Rs.6,172 crore in black money to Hong Kong through newly opened current accounts at a Bank of Baroda branch in Delhi has revealed that most of the account-holding firms had given false addresses.
“The agency on Sunday conducted searches at 50 locations to trace the companies which had transferred money to Hong Kong-based firms. However, most of them could not be traced. Either these companies do not exist or they gave false addresses while opening the accounts with the Ashok Vihar branch,” said a CBI official.
The agency has identified most of the suspects, who are currently being interrogated. Two of the bank officials, assistant general manager S.K. Garg and officer, Foreign Exchange, Jainish Dubey, are also under the scanner.
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The transactions were detected during an internal bank audit, which revealed that 59 current accounts were used to route “unaccounted money” to the same set of Hong Kong-based firms, on the pretext of advance remittances for import of items like cashew, rice and pulses. The amount was deposited in cash.
The audit report said that in one year, the foreign exchange business at the Ashok Vihar branch had shot up from Rs.45 crore in 2013-14 to Rs.21,529 crore in 2014-15. Further, there were 8,667 foreign exchange transactions between August 2014 and August 2015.
Over Rs.6,172 crore were sent to Hong Kong through 59 BoB accounts