Citi fraud: 40 affected HNIs, corporates file complaints

In a major development in the multi-crore financial fraud in Citibank, the Gurgaon Police has received nearly 40 complaints from high networth individuals (HNIs) and corporates in the past one week even as a special team of Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) completed detailed questioning of the two accused arrested in the case for second time.

Senior officials of the Gurgaon Police said that all the complaints were individually given and they have now clubbed them together and are assessing each of them in detail. Police said they were still in the process of reading the complaints.

Meanwhile, a special team of Sebi completed questioning of Shivraj Puri, the relationship manager of Citibank who is allegedly the mastermind of the fraud, and Sanjay Gupta, the chief financial officer of Hero Corporate Services. This is the second time that officials of Sebi have questioned both Puri and Gupta.

Investigators of the fraud also said that the Sebi had first questioned Puri and Gupta individually and later together to find out discrepancies in their statements.

The first complaint in the fraud, which is estimated to be around Rs 300 crore, was filed by Sanjeev Aggarwal, a high net worth client of the Citibank and also the managing director of Helion Advisors, for allegedly losing Rs 32.43 crore in the financial scam.

According to the police, Puri had showed a forged notification of Sebi for duping money from his clients so that the entire transaction looked real. Police also found that the money was invested in the stock market by him.

Aggarwal had blamed Citibank’s CEO Vikram Pandit, Chairman William R Rhodes among several other senior members of the bank for the fraud but the Gurgaon Police later gave a clean chit to all the top bosses of Citibank since they couldn’t find their involvement to the crime. Soon after his complaint, he had alleged that he was duped of the money because of systematic failure on the part of the bank.

In the course of the investigation, the police had found that Puri had allegedly opened 18 bank accounts in Citibank in the name of his family members. Although police have probed the role of his family members, they believe that none of the Puri's family members, including grandparents and parents, were involved in the scam with him or they were even aware of actions. Investigators have also revealed that Puri alone handled all these bank accounts.