Kochi: A group of officials from the National Bank of Ras Al Khaimah submitted details of over 100 Keralites allegedly involved in cheating the bank to the Central Police station in Kochi on Thursday. Extreme International Management Consultancy is handling the legal matters on behalf of the bank.
The team from the bank landed in Kochi even as Kerala Legal Services Authority directed 116 persons allegedly involved in the cheating to appear before it for resolving the issue on Friday.
The fraud is part of the cheating of Rs 20,000 cr by Indians from banks in UAE in the recent past. Out of alleged cheats, 30 percent belong to Kerala.
Most of the money amassed through the cheating has been brought to the state using the hawala route. The persons availed the money from the banks in the garb of business requirement under the master facility system by claiming overdraft, check discounting, letter of credit and trust receipts.
The master facility system has been availed by submitting an audit report for one year and signed cheques along with the application. The culprits also created false records of non-existent business transactions including invoices, delivery records and receipts. The banks were lax in close scrutiny of the details as most of them made prompt in repayments in the beginning.
A modus operandi of the fraud was to avail 30 percent loan of the assets shown in the audit report and some of the persons behind the racket availed similar facilities from 10 banks. So a company with an asset of Rs 100 cr managed to get a loan of Rs 300 cr, by showing 10 different assets.
Many of the persons then sold off their properties and assets in Dubai and UAE and routed the loan amount through hawala route to India before fleeing UAE.
When the bank unearthed the fraud and imposed travel restrictions most of the perpetrators left the country. Apart from Indians business persons from Pakistan and Egypt were also found involved in a similar kinds of fraud.
