UCO Bank fraud: ED attaches properties

The Enforcement Directorate, under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, has provisionally attached movable and immovable properties worth Rs 2.16 crore of persons involved in a bank fraud case in which the bank was defrauded to the tune of Rs 14 crore.

Based on a complaint received from UCO Bank, the CBI registered a criminal case against bank officials and an exporter who runs VLS Mining and VLS Exports. The officials allegedly sanctioned various credit facilities to the exporter through fraudulent means and thereby causing a loss of around Rs 14 crore to the bank, a press release from the ED said on Wednesday. 

On the basis of the FIR, the Enforcement Directorate had registered a case of money laundering and conducted investigations. ED sleuths found that exporter L Srinivasan had received around Rs 272 crore in the names of his two firms in the guise of export advances. He routed the 75% of the money to Dubai under the instructions of one Jibu Paul of Dubai and Mohammed Hanif Sheikh of Mumbai, in the guise of merchanting trade. 

In the said transactions, the suspects had also defrauded the bank to the tune of Rs.14 crore by availing overdraft facilities and demand loans on the basis of the FD opened as security for the foreign letter of credit issued in merchanting trade. Investigations revealed that the people involved in the case had laundered the amount received from UCO Bank. A portion of the amount was found lying in the form of one immovable property in Chennai, another immovable property in Kerala and also lying in the form of fixed deposit and bank balances in the names of related people.