Bhilwara co-op bank scam: ED to attach assets

New Delhi, March 11 (IANS) The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has issued attachment order of Rs 9.97 crore assets in connection with the fraudulent Bhilwara Mahila Urban Cooperative Bank (BMUCB) amounting to Rs 25.10 crore.As per the order movable and immovable properties belonging to Ravindra Kumar Bordia, Kirti Bordia, Dev Kishan Acharya, Mahaveer Chand Parakh, Roshan Lal Sancheti and others — all residents of Bhilwara in Rajasthan — will be attached under Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA).Properties include four bank accounts having balance worth Rs 4.39 lakh and 262 immovable assets worth Rs 9.92 crore, including agriculture land measuring 12 Bigha 2.5 Biswa, residential and commercial properties situated in Bhilwara.Money laundering investigation was initiated on the basis of First Information Report (FIR) registered by Rajasthan Police and charge sheet has been filed in the case. A complaint was registered in the matter with the Rajasthan Police on May 19, 2016.Police in their investigation found that aforementioned individuals defrauded Bhilwara Mahila Urban Cooperative Bank (BMUCB) of Rs 25.10 crore.As per the Rajasthan Co-operative Society Act, 2001 norms, loan against property can be availed by keeping the applicant’s commercial or residential property as security. The value of your property decides the amount of potential loan to be sanctioned to the applicant.The ED investigation has revealed that Ravindra Kumar Bordia, the financial advisor of BMUCB, and his wife Kirti Bordia president of the bank were in active connivance with Dev Kishan Acharya, Mahaveer Chand Parakh and other private persons.The bank officials sanctioned loans to the tune of Rs 25.10 crore in name of various private persons on the basis of forged and fabricated documents and siphoned off the loan amount by transferring or utilizing the bank funds for repayment of old loans availed by them and for purchase of immovable assets.Properties which were pledged or mortgaged with the bank against loans do not belong to the loanees, said the ED.Moreover, the agencies said loanees were unaware about the loan fraudulently taken in their names and had no financial capacity to purchase the assets shown as belonging to them in the mortgage documents submitted to the Bank.These fraudsters had taken KYC documents and signatures of these poor persons in the guise of opening of saving bank account or some other reasons by offering small benefits to these people and misused these documents for obtaining fraudulent loans.–IANSrak/in