CBI told the court that Yashwant Joshi, who worked in the forex department of PNB’s Mumbai branch, admitted to having received two gold coins weighing 60 grams and a pair of gold and diamond earrings from Nirav Modi.
CBI had arrested two internal auditors of the branch
An official of Punjab National Bank received gold and diamond jewellery from a billionaire jeweller accused of being involved in a Rs 12,600 crore bank fraud, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) told a court on Saturday.
The state lender in January uncovered the alleged fraud in which several bank officials were suspected of colluding with jeweller Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi to issue fraudulent letters of undertakings (LoUs), for their companies to raise loans from overseas branches of mostly Indian banks.
The CBI, which has arrested 14 people in the case, on Saturday for the first time said bribes were paid to at least one Punjab National Bank (PNB) official by Modi.
The agency told the court that Yashwant Joshi, who worked as a manager in the forex department of the Mumbai branch that is at the centre of the fraud, admitted to having received two gold coins weighing 60 grams and a pair of gold and diamond earrings from Modi.
The articles have been recovered from Joshi’s house in the presence of independent witnesses, the CBI said.
“This indicates that he was in collusion with the beneficiary accused persons to cheat the bank,” CBI Inspector D. Damodaran said in a court filing. “He also obtained illegal gratification from the beneficiary party for continuing issuance of fraudulent LoUs.”
The CBI also said that investigations had revealed that another arrested accused Prafful Sawant, PNB Scale I officer, export, deliberately ignored to take print out of the SWIFT messages and ensure that the same have been entered into the core banking system in a bid to evade the section of the fraud and to favour Modi’s firms.