Six arrested in alleged Bank of Baroda Rs 6,000 crore money laundering scam

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Enforcement Directorate (ED) have arrested the AGM of Bank of Baroda (BOB) along with five others in an alleged Rs 6,000 crore money laundering scam.

The CBI and ED have held S K Garg, AGM and branch head of a New Delhi-based branch of Bank of Baroda, and Jainish Dubey, its forex in-charge, under charges of criminal conspiracy and the Prevention of Corruption Act. Along with Garg and Dubey, other middlemen – Kamal Kalra, Chandan Bhatia, Gurucharan Singh Dhawan and Sanjay Aggarwal – were also arrested.

The move came after a two-day remitting interrogation followed by the concerns raised by the Congress party a week back. The political party alleged that Rs 6,172 crore was remitted from Bank of Baroda to Hong Kong and is being projected as payments for non-existent imports, i.e., cashews, pulses and rice.

An Economic Times report revealed, the bank had also filed a complaint after its internal probe found huge transactions through 59 companies to Hong Kong for imports that never took place.

While explaining their approach towards the matter, an ED official said, "It is not the case of black money stashed abroad but it is a case of trade-based money laundering where exporter is gaining out of duty drawback due to over invoicing and importer gaining out of saving customs duty by under invoicing.”

During the interrogation, Kamal Kalra, a middle man, stated that he himself works in forex department of HDFC Bank. Kalra also claimed that he helped Bhatia and Aggarwal for remitting the amount through Bank of Baroda. He also stated that he used to get his commission at 30-50 paise per dollar remitted abroad.