The director of Kompass Infrastructures Private Limited was arrested by the Economic Offences Wing of Cyberabad police on charges of forgery and cheating Union Bank of India to the tune of ₹ 53 crore.
The accused, Kattamidi Santosh Reddy, 36, from Sanathnagar, created forged bank guarantees and cheated the bank by exceeding his credit limit. Two cases were registered against the company and four of its directors.
In July, Assistant General Manager of Union Bank, Sarigala Prakash Babu, approached police stating that the Directors of M/s Kompass Infrastructures obtained bank guarantees from the complainant’s bank branch at Kondapur to the tune of ₹53,18,50,093 in a total of 39 transactions in favour of various beneficiaries like Hella Infra Market Ltd., HPCL., Infinity Projects, etc,.
After obtaining the bank guarantees from the bank, the accused Reddy was approached the branch and returned the BG and closed the transaction.
Recently the bank came to know that in many of these transactions the accused has not closed his transaction with the beneficiary company but he fabricated a fake BG and closed transaction with the bank.
“On verification by the complainant bank, the same BG with the same number is available with both the bank and beneficiary as well. The accused either submitted fabricated BG to beneficiary company or submitted the fake one to the bank for closure of the transaction,” Commissioner of Police M. Stephen Raveendra said.
Further explaining the modus operandi of Reddy, DCP (Crimes) Rohini Priyadarshini said that the former started Kompass Infrastructures which undertakes civil contract works. “For procuring materials from different supplier companies, the accused took bank guarantees from the Union Bank of India, and based on the bank guarantees, eight of the companies supplied materials to him,” she said.
For taking bank guarantees from the bank, he has kept properties of one of the directors as securities and his maximum sanction limit to take bank guarantees is ₹15 crore as per the bank norms. “Beyond ₹15 crore sanction limit, the bank guarantee should be closed or renewed at the bank to get a new bank guarantee in its place,” Ms. Priyadarshini said.
In order to get material from different companies beyond the sanctioned limit prescribed by the bank, he created forged bank guarantees and submitted to the companies as if they were issued by the bank. To get the new bank guarantee, he took the bank guarantee already submitted to the companies and returned to the banks with company’s letters as if they were returned by the companies, by creating forged letters of the companies and by doing so he obtained 39 bank guarantees from the complainant bank and cheated to the tune of ₹53 crore, the DCP explained.
Fearing arrest, Reddy fled to foreign countries and the EOW team kept a watch over his movements, collected technical and all possible evidence and finally apprehended him from a residence in Jubilee Hills, she said.
Notices under Section 41 (A) of CrPC were issued to another director Nekkanti Srinivas, based on the confession of Reddy. The other two directors – Kondakal Gopal and Sompavarapu Surender Reddy are absconding and efforts are on to trace them.
