CBI arrests PNB General Manager in $1.8 bn fraud case

The CBI on Wednesday said that it has arrested a General Manager rank officer of the Punjab National Bank in connection with the Rs 11,300 crore fraud case.

"Rajesh Jindal, who was holding the charge of Brady House Branch Head between August 2009 and May 2011 was arrested on Tuesday night from Mumbai," a CBI official said.

It was during Jindal's tenure at the Brady House the alleged fraud took place, the CBI officer said.

Jindal was heading the second largest branch of the PNB when the practice of issuing the Letter of Understandings (LOUs) without sanctioned limits to diamond trader Nirav Modi's firms began.

Jindal was presently posted as GM Credit at PNB's Head Office in New Delhi. His was the 14th arrest in the fraud case so far.

Since February 14, when the CBI registered the first FIR in the case, multiple raids at Nirav Modi and Choksi's residential and office premises have been conducted.

The agency officials also said that they are questioning the executive director and general manager level officials of the Brady House Branch along with Modi's staffs and associates including Saurabh Sharma, who is President Foreign Finance Division of the Firestar International Pvt. Ltd. and Subhash Parab, Finance Executive.

Beside them, the agency officials would also continue to examine the executive level officials of Mehul Choksi's Gitanjali Group.

Earlier on Tuesday, the agency also arrested three employees of Nirav Modi and two of his uncle Mehul Choksi's Gitanjali group.

Nirav Modi's Firestar International firm's President Vipul Ambani, its Senior Executive Arjun Patil, and Executive Assistant and authorised signatory of the diamond merchant's three accused firms, Kavita Mankikar, were arrested after daylong questioning on Tuesday.

Chief Managing Officer (CFO) of Gitanjali group, Kapil Khandelwal, and its Manager Niten Shahi were also held.

The agency will now produce all six arrested since Tuesday before a court later in the day.

The arrests were made in two cases registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on February 14 and 15 against Nirav Modi and the Gitanjali group of firms respectively.

--IANS

aks-rak/in