The PNB alleged that the company had illegally diverted the funds received from the bank.

New Delhi:

The CBI on Thursday conducted searches at multiple locations in the country after registering three separate cases against two Nagpur-based companies and a Bhubaneswar-based firm pertaining to loan frauds in the Punjab National Bank totalling over Rs 125 crore, officials said.

The agency has booked Nagpur-based Linkson Ispat and Energies Pvt Ltd, its Chairman-cum-Managing Director Yashwant Sangla, and Linkson International Ltd in which he is a director, in two separate cases for alleged cumulative fraud of around Rs 93 crore through diversion of loan funds and cheating, they said.

The case against Linkson International Ltd pertains to loss of Rs 62 crore, while that of Linkson Ispat and Energies Pvt Ltd to the tune of Rs 31 crore.

In connection with these two cases, the CBI carried out searches at four locations in Nagpur at the residential and official premises of the accused from where the probe agency recovered financial documents related to loan, company”s financial health, electronic evidence like hard drives among others, officials said. The bank has alleged that the companies trading in coal allegedly availed the facilities on the basis of forged documents and diverted the loan funds to companies having common directors.

The bank noted that the chartered accountant who was signing the financial records of the accused company was clearing the financial documents of companies suspected to be receiving funds from them.

In an unrelated case, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) booked a Bhubaneswar-based company–Global Trading Solutions Ltd–and its Managing Director Abinash Mohanty along with three other former and sitting directors, besides three senior PNB officials in a case of cheating the public sector bank of around Rs 32 crore, they said.

The CBI carried out searches at official and residential premises of Punjab National Bank (PNB) officials and the company executives in Visakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh), Kolkata (West Bengal), Jammu (Jammu and Kashmir), Bhubaneswar and Cuttack (both in Odisha), the CBI said in a statement.

“It was alleged that the said PNB officials had entered into a conspiracy with the Bhubaneswar-based private firm through its said Director(s) in the matter relating to fraud perpetrated in processing, sanctioning and disbursing CC facility, bill discounting and issuing Letters of Credit to the Bhubaneswar firm during 2010-15,” CBI spokesperson R K Gaur said in a statement.

The PNB alleged that the company had illegally diverted the funds received from the bank to its sister/group companies in India and abroad in “such a clandestine manner” that it could not be detected during routing banking operations.

The company allegedly round tripped funds among companies having common directors with a criminal conspiracy to defraud the bank, causing a loss of around Rs 32 crore, it added.

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