Citi fraud: Puri's custody extended till Feb 11

A local court today extended the judicial custody of Shivraj Puri, the alleged mastermind of the Rs 400 crore Citibank fraud, and co-accused Sanjay Gupta, till February 11.

The two are currently lodged in Bhondsi jail, about 20 km from here.

Chief Judicial Magistrate D N Bhardwaj extended the custody by 14 days. He announced the extension using the video conferencing facility at the hearing.

Puri, a Relationship Manager employed with Citibank's Gurgaon branch, allegedly duped high networth individuals (HNIs) and corporates by collecting funds from them on promise of unusually high returns.

Gupta allegedly arranged funds for Puri and in lieu got commission of Rs 20 crore.

A multi-pronged probe involving the police, banking regulator RBI and capital markets watchdog Sebi is currently underway in the fraud case.

Sanjeev Aggarwal, one of the HNI victims, had even named Citibank's global chief Vikram Pandit and other senior executives in his complaint.

However, Aggarwal later said he would not pursue his complaint against the foreign lender. But the Gurgaon police said it would investigate the case thoroughly and comments of Aggarwal had no legal value.

Citibank also said it was working towards providing "fair compensation" to its affected customers.