'Citi bosses not involved in fraud'

Jan 05, 2011 |

Tags:

New Delhi: Citibank has dismissed allegations of involvement of its senior executives in the Rs 300 crore fraud at its Gurgaon branch as claimed by high networth individual Sanjeev Aggarwal who lost Rs 32.43 crore in the cheating case.

"As this individual (Sanjeev Aggarwal, managing director of Helion Advisors) knows well, Citi identified the fraud and immediately reported the matter to the regulators and the law enforcement agencies", Citibank said in a statement.

"His claims against senior executives are completely without basis and we intend to contest them vigorously. It was on Citi complaint that the Gurgaon police lodged an FIR and are currently investigating the matter", the statement said, adding the bank would continue to work with authorities on the investigation.

Aggarwal yesterday filed an FIR with the local police alleging that he was cheated of his life's savings of Rs 32.43 crore in the fraud masterminded by Citibank's Relationship Manager Shivraj Puri.

Besides senior officials of the bank, Aggarwal named Indian-born global CEO of the Citibank Vikram Pandit and Chairman William R. Rhodes in the FIR that alleged criminal breach of trust, falsification of accounts, cheating and criminal conspiracy by the bank officials.

Aggarwal had alleged that it was not possible for an employee to commit such a big fraud without the knowledge of the bank.

"Being a multinational bank of formidable repute, we trusted Citibank NA with our life savings which have now been wiped out by an illegal act and offence committed by the Bank and its employees.

"It is impossible for an employee to undertake fraud of such a scale without the knowledge of the bank...I am devastated at this loss on my savings and strongly feel that Citibank NA is accountable to return my money", he had said in a statement.

The fraud at the Citibank's Gurgaon branch, involving diversion of depositors money into the stock market, was uncovered last week. Besides Aggarwal, several other high networth individuals (HNIs), the victims of the fraud, have complained to the police that their securities were encashed without their knowledge.

These investors were lured into investing funds on promise of high returns by Puri, the main accused in the Rs 300 crore scam.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/50872" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-d87b88e4f7de15d374d57ca17675e037" value="form-d87b88e4f7de15d374d57ca17675e037" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="85797670" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>