The local policy today registered an FIR naming Indian-born global CEO of the bank Vikram Pandit and 10 other officials in the Rs 300-crore Citibank fraud case. The fraud at the bank's Gurgaon branch,involving diversion of depositors money into the stock market,was uncovered last week. Besides Pandit,the FIR filed by a high networth individual (HNI) Sanjiv Agarwal with the Gurgaon police also names Citibank chairman William R Rhodes along with other senior officials based in India. "We got the complaint and immediately registered the FIR (First Information Report)" Gurgaon police commissioner S S Deswal said. In the FIR,Agarwal,who is a resident of Gurgaon,alleged criminal breach of trust,falsification of accounts,cheating and criminal conspiracy by the officials of the Citibank. "All persons named (in FIR). in collision and conspiracy with each other and other known or unkonwn persons,(and) have misappropriated large sums of money to the tune of Rs 32.43 crore" Agarwal said in his complaint. The case has been registered under sections 409,477A,420 and 120B of IPC. The others who have been named in the FIR include Citibank's senior officials CFO John Gerspach and COO Doughlas Peterson (both based in New York). The others who figure in the FIR are Amit Zarpuri,Ashwini Chaddha,Amrita Farmahan,Rahul Soota,N Rajshekaran,Pramit Jhaveri and Shivraj Puri,the main accused in the fraud case. Shivraj Puri,relationship manager at Citibank's Gurgaon branch was the prime accused in the high profile scam case. Another person involved in the scam was the Chief Finance Officer of the Hero Group and associates,Sanjay Gupta. He was arrested by the Gurgaon police on Monday. The arrest comes five days after the prime suspect in the scam,Shivraj Puri,a relationship manager at the banks DLF Phase-II branch,surrendered and was later arrested. According to the police,Gupta made a profit of Rs 20 crore through the scam by allegedly instigating staff of the Hero Group to invest money amounting to Rs 200 crore in his two firms BG Finance and G2S Management Consultants. Puri and Gupta allegedly had a deal to first get the money deposited in Guptas company,from where Puri would siphon it off to to one of his fake accounts. Eighty-one such accounts have been traced by the police.
