The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has booked a Hyderabad based company for allegedly cheating a consortium of banks of Rs 7,926 crore.
The central investigating agency filed a case against Transstroy India Ltd for cheating multiple banks of almost Rs 8,000 crore.
As per reports, the amount involved in the fraud is even higher than what fugitive Nirav Modi owes to banks in India.
The 49-year-old is currently facing extradition proceedings and is lodged in a UK jail. He owes some Rs 7,700 crore to Indian banks.
Transstroy, which deals in construction of highways, bridges, irrigation projects, metro related work and is also in the business of oil and gas, is currently under liquidation process as per an order by National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) in September 2019.
Apart from Transstroy and its CMD Cherukuri Shridhar Sridhar, the CBI has named as accused Rayapati Sambasiva Rao (additional director in the company) and Akkineni Sathish (additional director) in the FIR registered at its Bengaluru unit.
The agency teams on Friday carried out raids in Hyderabad and Guntur at the premises of accused persons and recovered documents related to the fraud, officials said.
CBI spokesperson RK Gaur said that Transstroy had availed credit facilities on multiple banking arrangements from a consortium formed with other banks led by Canara Bank.
“It was further alleged that the accused had involved in falsification/fabrication of books of accounts, fudging of stock statements, tampering of balance sheets, round-tripping of funds etc,” HT quoted Gaur as saying.
He said the accused allegedly misappropriated the bank’s funds and diverted the loan amount sanctioned by the banks and caused loss of Rs 7926.01 crore (approx) to Canara Bank and other member banks.
“The account had become NPA (non-performing asset) and the fraud was reported,” he added.