CBI filed 6 cases against banks on money laundering since 2012

New Delhi: The CBI has registered six cases for irregularities and violation of Prevention of Money Laundering Act and forex scams in public and private sector banks since April 2012, Lok Sabha was informed Friday.

"The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered six cases...During the last three years and current year.

"In 4 cases, charge sheets have been filed in the court and two cases are under investigation," Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said in a written reply.

Charge sheets have been filed in cases related to Axis Bank (estimated loss Rs 60.5 lakh), Bank of India (Rs 18 crore loss to MMTC), IDBI Bank, ICICI Bank, ING Vysya Bank and China Trust Commercial Bank (estimated loss Rs 180 crore).

Cases which are under investigation relate to UCO Bank (estimated loss of about Rs 13 crore) and Bank of Baroda (estimated loss of Rs 13.75 crore as on date, it may be increased as the investigation is at initial state).

On receipt of a complaint from Bank of Baroda and registration of FIR, the Directorate of Enforcement registered a case under Prevention of Money Laundering Act, Jaitley said.

As per the complaint, foreign exchange equivalent to about Rs 6,000 crore was remitted by various persons through newly opened 59 accounts of certain companies, in the garb of advance import remittances to certain companies abroad.

In addition, Jaitley said similar case has also been registered by Directorate of Enforcement in respect of Oriental Bank of Commerce.

In this case too, an amount Rs 380 crore was remitted to various companies based in Hong Kong using several fictitious companies during 2007-11 and Rs 100 crore was remitted from 2012 till 2014 using the similar modus operandi.

Jaitley further said the RBI in October issued instructions to all banks highlighting the irregularities observed.

"All banks were advised in the letter to look into these aspects and conduct a thorough internal audit and place the report before Audit Committee of the Board of respective banks and forward the findings to the RBI so that further corrective action as required may be taken in this regard," he added.

Further, Financial Intelligence Unit-India (FIU-IND) in consultation with RBI, had in November issued guidelines specifying 'Red Flag' indicators for detection of suspicious transactions related to trade-based money laundering.