NEW DELHI:
Rasool, 40, sells
vegetables on his cart in north Delhi. Last year, he became the director of a
company -without even knowing it -for a remuneration of Rs 10,000 per month.
Like Rasool (name changed), 58 other
people, mostly living in slums and working as rickshaw-pullers, street vendors,
drivers, household workers etc became pseudo-entrepreneurs after they were
approached by black money hoarders in what has come to be known as the Bank of Baroda money laundering scandal.
These `directors' of 59 fake
companies were the most crucial cog in the Rs 6,172 crore scam.
It all started in May last year.
Central Bureau of Investigation and Enforcement Directorate officials say these
poor workers and hawkers were roped in by the accused businessmen -Gurcharan
Singh, Chandan Bhatia, Gurucharan Singh, Sanjay Aggarwal and others behind the transfers
to Hong Kong and Dubai.
The clique had by then won over two
officials of Bank of Baroda Ashok Vihar branch, assistant general manager S K
Garg and head of foreign exchange division Jainish Dubey -both later arrested
by CBI -to connive in the plan.
The drivers, vendors etc were asked
to just provide their voter ID cards for which they were offered Rs 10,000
15,000 per month. "It was a lucrative deal for these poor people. They had
to just give their IDs," said an investigator.
On the basis of voter IDs, their PAN
cards were made by the accused and current accounts opened in the BoB branch in
the name of fake companies. "Some names in these companies - directors and
partners - were almost same and companies were shown registered at fake
addresses," the officer added.
Similarly , shell companies were
opened in Hong Kong through their contacts.
Once the accounts were opened, the
process of transferring money through dummy companies belonging to
exportersimporters began.As part of the modus operandi, the exporters, in order
to get extra money from the duty drawback, overvalued the exports. In a release
last month, ED stated that "for such overvaluation, exporters require foreign
exchange in the foreign country equivalent to the overvaluation".
Similarly , importers, who bring in items on which the custom duty is high,
undervalue the imports in order to save custom duty , and they require foreign
exchange in the country of origin to pay the difference, it added.
The imports of dry fruits, pulses
and rice were shown to be done in these 59 companies having accounts in BoB. No
actual imports took place.
The probe found that Rs 6,172 crore
was deposited in these 59 accounts between August 2014 till August this year,
mostly in the form of forex remittances and transfer through other banks. The
suspects used another set of persons in the transfers.
Officials said that `entry
operators' in Old Delhi area, mainly in Chandni Chowk, were approached by the
exportersimporters to transfer cash in these 59 current accounts.
These entry operators, investigators
say , usually have various bank accounts for absorbing black money of several
businessmen. The entry operators provide fake purchase invoices three to four
times the actual value of the items. Once they are paid cash through different
channels on commission basis, these operators put that money in several bank
accounts owned by them.The money was then transferred to the BoB accounts in smaller
amounts through different banks.
CBI and ED officials said that they
are trying to identify all the players in the scam and many persons are being
questioned. An officer termed it the case of "turning black money into
white" through banking hawala channels.
