The Enforcement Directorate has arrested a chartered accountant for his complicity in a ₹3,269.42-crore bank fraud allegedly by Shakti Bhog Foods Limited and others.
“The arrest of chartered accountant Raman Bhuraria under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act was made after the rejection of his anticipatory bail by the Special Court. Searches have also been conducted by the agency on various locations,” said an ED official.
The accused was produced before a court, which sent him to the agency’s custody till August 20.
The ED probe is based on a First Information Report registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against Shakti Bhog Foods and others on the charge of cheating a consortium of 10 banks. It is alleged that they round-tripped money via related parties and also siphoned off funds through fictitious sales and purchases with dummy entities.
The agency had earlier arrested the company’s chairman-cum-managing director Kewal Krishan Kumar. Apart from him, the CBI case named Siddharth Kumar and Sunanda Kumar as accused persons.
Shakti Bhog Foods is into manufacture and sale of a wide range of food products such as wheat flour, rice, biscuits and cookies in northern India. It has third-party tie-ups in other parts of the country. Its loan account was declared a fraud after the banks detected instances of alleged manipulation of the account statements and stock status.
The audited financial statement for 2015-16 mentioned that inventory worth ₹3,035.52 crore was damaged due to pest, and therefore sold at substantially low rates. However, in the stock and receivable audit conducted for January-February 2016, the stock in September 2015 was said to be worth ₹3,537.55 crore, it was alleged.
It was also alleged that two of the five vendors shown to have been paid money by the company did not exist. The vehicle numbers mentioned on the goods transport challans were of two wheelers and other classes of vehicles.
