Gurgaon police questions Citibank CFO

A day after the Gurgaon police arrested Shivraj Puri, a relationship manager of Citibank on charges of duping wealthy clients of the company for more than Rs 300 crore, it questioned three executives to help detail the fraud.

Senior officers said Sanjay Gupta, the chief financial officer of the Hero Group, and executives of broking firms Religare and Bonanza were called for questioning. The Hero Group, much of whose funds were siphoned away in the scam, declined comment.

“The three executives were called by the police to find out more about the money trail and how the funds were transferred. Sanjay Gupta was called as part of investigations; a a lot of funds were transferred into the two brokerage firms,” said S S Deswal, city police commissioner.

He said the investigations showed the money in question was safe, as it had been invested in several financial instruments. “The police have so far not taken any action against other accomplices of Shivraj Puri because it seems their involvement in the case was negligible,” he added. The police have questioned Puri’s grandfather, 92-year-old Premnath, Shiela Premnath, 86, his grandmother, and mother, Dhiksha Puri.

“Citibank came to know about the fraud a month ago but they conducted internal investigations first and then filed a formal complaint,” revealed Deswal.