SFIO summons other banks in PNB fraud case

The Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) on Tuesday issued letters to some banks asking them to explain about the working capital facility given to Gitanjali Group in the Punjab National Bank (PNB) fraud case.

According to sources, a consortium of 31 banks had given working capital facility to Gitanjali Group.

The SFIO had earlier summoned Punjab National Bank, and now it has issued letters to some more banks.

The Punjab National Bank detected a 1.77 billion dollar scam in which 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 Central Bureau of Investigation (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.