Mumbai: The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Mumbai police has registered a Rs 330-crore cheating and forgery case against a city-based company and its representatives for securing investment from multinational banking major HSBC with fake promises in the last three years.
Mumbai-based Avitel Post-Studio Ltd, which has two sister companies in Dubai and Mauritius, told the bank that they had entered into a contract with BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) to upgrade their entire library in London from 2D to 3D format. The accused wanted to purchase technical equipment and software for the conversion and sought money from the bank. They submitted documents on the basis of which the bank invested in their company. Although the money trail from the bank to the company is not clear at present, HSBC later learned that the submitted documents had been forged. It then approached the Mumbai police for help.
Joint commissioner of police (crime), Himanshu Roy, said, “Prima facie, it’s a case of cheating. We will investigate further.”
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Not clear how bank was taken in by con
Mumbai: City-based company Avitel Post-Studio Ltd had approached HSBC in 2010 asking the bank to invest in its upgradation project for BBC. Its ‘officials’ allegedly even arranged the bank representative’s meeting with an executive who claimed that he was representing BBC.
It’s not clear where the meeting took place and how the bank was convinced about the BBC representative’s genuineness.
Afterwards, the accused insisted that the bank disburse part of the required money immediately as they needed to pay their principal supplier. They submitted their company’s forged papers to the bank after which it invested in their company.
The bank later made enquiries with the BBC and found that they had not awarded any contract to the accused. The bank also found that the BBC representative who met them was a conman and all the submitted documents were forged.
On Tuesday, an EOW officer visited D N Nagar police station along with the legal advisor of HSBC and registered the case. The case has been transferred to the EOW for further investigation.
Additional commissioner of police (EOW) Rajwardhan Sinha said, “The accused produced a fake agreement and documents to cheat the bank. We have registered a case against certain persons and during investigation if we come to know that more accused involved in the fraud, we will book them in the case.”
Courtesy:
Vijay V Singh TNN
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