In its biggest bank fraud case, the CBI has booked ABG Shipyard Ltd and its former chairman and managing director Rishi Kamlesh Agarwal along with others for allegedly cheating a consortium of banks led by State Bank of India of over £2.28 billion, officials said.
Besides Agarwal, the agency has also named the then executive director Santhanam Muthaswamy, directors Ashwini Kumar, Sushil Kumar Agarwal and Ravi Vimal Nevetia and another company ABG International Pvt Ltd for alleged offences of criminal conspiracy, cheating, criminal breach of trust and abuse of official position under the IPC and the Prevention of Corruption Act, they said.
"Searches were conducted at 13 locations in the premises of accused including private company, directors at Surat, Bharuch, Mumbai, Pune etc which led to recovery of incriminating documents," CBI said in a statement.
The bank had first filed a complaint on November 8, 2019 on which the CBI had sought some clarifications on March 12, 2020.
The bank filed a fresh complaint in August that year. After "scrutinising" for over one and a half years, the CBI acted on the complaint filing an FIR on February 7. The company was sanctioned credit facilities from 28 banks and financial institutions led by ICICI Bank with the SBI having exposure of £246.85 million, the officials said.
The Forensic Audit by Ernst and Young has shown that between 2012-17, the accused colluded together and committed illegal activities including diversion of funds, misappropriation and criminal breach of trust, they said.
In its complaint, the SBI said ABG Shipyard Ltd (ABGSL) is the flagship company of the ABG Group which engaged in the business of ship building and ship repair.
The ABGSL being a major player in Indian ship building industry operates from shipvards are located at Dahej and Surat in Gujarat with capacity to build vessels up to 18,000 dead weight tonnage (DWT) at Surat Shipyard and 1,20,000 dead weight tonnage (DWT) at Dahej Shipyard. "The company has been referred to NCLT, Ahmedabad, by ICICI Bank for CIRP," it said.
