PNB scam: CBI arrests 5

In a major development in the Punjab National Bank (PNB) - Nirav Modi fraud case, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Tuesday arrested president, finance, Firestar International Pvt Ltd, Vipul Ambani.

The law enforcement body also arrested Kavita Mankikar, executive assistant and authorised signatory of the three accused firms.

Arjun Patil, senior executive, Firestar group; Kapil Khandelwal, CFO, Nakshatra group, and Niten Shahi, manager, Gitanjali have also been detained.

Mumbai's Special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court earlier sent Bechu Tiwari, Yashwant Joshi, and Praful Sawant to police custody till March 3.

Bechhu Tiwari, the then chief manager in the Forex department; Yashwant Joshi, Scale-II Manager in the Forex department; and Praful Sawant, Scale-I officer handling the exports section, were arrested on Monday.

The CBI insisted that the present accused were not cooperating in the investigation and were shifting all the blame on Gokulnath Shetty, the retired deputy manager of Punjab National Bank's (PNB) foreign exchange department at the Brady House in Fort in Mumbai, and others in this case.

For those unversed, the Punjab National Bank detected a 1.77 billion dollar scam, in which jeweller Nirav Modi acquired fraudulent letters of undertaking from one of its branches for overseas credit from other Indian lenders.

The scam was started in 2011 and was detected in the third week of January this year, after which the PNB officials reported it to the concerned agencies.

Meanwhile, the PNB filed a second complaint with the CBI on February 13.

The CBI had received the complaint from the PNB on January 28 and a case was registered in the case on January 31.