ED makes third arrest in Reliance Power fake bank guarantee PMLA case

The Directorate of Enforcement (ED) has arrested a person, Amar Nath Dutta, in connection with its ongoing probe into the alleged fake bank guarantee probe related to Reliance Power Ltd.

This is the third arrest in the matter, as it may be recalled that on October 11, Ashok Kumar Pal, the then Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Reliance Power Ltd, was arrested by ED in connection with money laundering charges in the same case.

Pal’s arrest was followed by the arrest of his accomplice, Partha Sarthi Biswal, managing director of a shell company- M/s Biswal Tradelink Pvt Ltd.

Meanwhile, Dutta was arrested by the anti-money laundering agency on Thursday under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002.

He was arrested in connection with a money-laundering investigation linked to the submission of forged Bank Guarantees (BGs) of over Rs 68 crore, forged BG endorsements, and fake SFMS confirmations by Reliance Power Ltd subsidiary to the Solar Energy Corporation of India Ltd. (SECI).

He claims to provide consultancy services in trade financing.

Dutta is a Kolkata resident, who played an active role along with Ashok Pal and Partha Sarathi Biswal, in providing fake BGs.

He was produced before an additional sessions judge at Patiala House courts on November 6, and was sent to four days’ ED custody till November 10.

The ED had initiated investigation on the basis of three FIRs filed in this case including by SECI with the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Delhi Police.

SECI, a public sector undertaking under the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, has suffered a loss of over Rs 100 crore due to fraudulent BG submission by the Reliance Power subsidiary.

During investigation, it was uncovered that forged SBI endorsements were generated through spoofed email domain sbi.17313@s-bi.co.in to mislead SECI into accepting the fabricated BGs as genuine.

In addition to this, the ED has identified more spoofed domains of commercial banks such as 'lndiabank.in', 'lndusindbank.in', 'pnblndia.in', 'psdbank.co.in', 'siliguripnb.co.in', 'lobbank.co.in', and 'unionbankofIndia.co.in' - each using single-character swaps or minor textual tweaks.

These spoofed domains were used by the same set of persons.

The ED’s investigation is continuing into various aspects including identification of beneficiaries of proceeds of crime, tracing of end-use of funds, assets acquired from proceeds of crime and examination of the larger conspiracy and roles of additional persons and entities.