Mumbai: Six leading banks of the country are hit by a Rs. 15,000 crore foreign remittance scam. This involves some importers having deposited fake bills of entries (of imports) in banks and remittance for the same made to unknown people outside India.
The banks have individually approached Economic Offenses Wing (EOW) of the Mumbai police seeking investigation against dubious importers.
Banks involved in the fake import remittance scam
Five leading private banks and a public sector bank have been affected by the scam. They are – ICICI Bank, IndusInd Bank, ING Vysya, Yes Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Bank of India respectively.
Out of these ING Vysya and Kotak Mahindra are the ones which topped the fake import remittance list.
As told by a senior official of EOW to DNA India, “Banks came to us and handed over the list of importers who have made fake entries of imports, while remitting money abroad. We are looking into the matter.”
Companies which faked imports in the remittance scam
The companies which deposited fake bills of entries of imports in the above-mentioned banks for securing advance remittances are - Kanika Gems, Charbhuja Diamonds, Sambhav Exports, Keshav Impex, Pulkit Impex and Yogeshwar Diamonds.
According to the daily's report, earlier the scam was thought to be at Rs 4000 crore basis a transaction that took place between 2011 and May 2014, however, now the same is being suspected to be as big as Rs 15000 crore by the Enforcement Directorate (ED).
Subsequent to Directorate's investigations, the customs department in Mumbai has written to all six banks mentioning that the documents and entries made by importers are "absolutely fictitious".
According to the report, multiple duplicates of each bill of entry were made and submitted to different banks in order to show legitimacy of the imports.
ED assessed the documents submitted by the importers and came to a conclusion that several forged bills of entries were made to banks with the intent to fraudulently remit foreign exchange. These fake bills were used for diamond imports
Now, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has also joined the probe with ED.
The bureau has sought details from Bank of India in this matter. The documents and list of importers available with ED have also been shared with the bureau.
Both the agencies are, now, in a process of probing importer's background and checking with banks if due diligence and ‘Know Your Customer' (KYC) norms were duly followed or not.
Earlier also banks were alerted by ED to be more careful while transferring large funds.
