Aggarwal keeps pressure on Citi to make good his losses

Sanjeev Aggarwal, co-founder of private equity fund Helion Investment Advisors, who accused Citibank of duping him of Rs 32.43 crore of his savings on Tuesday, kept up the pressure on the bank to ‘own up to its wrongdoing, and make up for the losses.’

Meeting reporters at his home in Gurgaon, Aggarwal said the Rs 300-crore fraud is a systemic failure and believes multiple parties must have been involved in such a big fraud. “One person can’t do this. There are more people involved,” Aggarwal said.

Aggarwal, who co-founded business process outsourcing firm Daksh which was later taken over by IBM and a co-founder of private equity fund Helion Investment Advisors, has been a Citibank customer since 2002, and member of its a wealth management scheme of Citibank since 2004. “The fraud took place in the last one year,” he said.

“As a standard operating practice, Citibank gets its customers to sign on blank documents which allow them to buy and sell securities. That instrument was used to move money into employees’ own accounts rather than my account,” Aggarwal said.

He discovered the fraud in the first week of December when he got a call from Citibank stating that Citi’s Relationship Manager Shivraj Puri is on leave and there is something wrong with his account. “My trust was shaken when one day I found that there is a gap of Rs 33 crore, which was flown out of my account into other accounts.”

Aggarwal took time to file an FIR as he was trying to understand what has happened as a large amount of money has disappeared in a flash. “At one time Citi was keen on a settlement but I realised that the settlement process was not working out,” he said. “Citi needs to own upto its wrongdoing, and make good my losses,” he added.

On Tuesday, Aggarwal filed a complaint against Citibank and 11 others, including Citigroup’s Chief Executive Officer Vikram Pandit, Chairman William R. Rhodes, Chief Financial Officer John Gerspach and Chief Operating Officer Douglas Peterson and Relationship Manager Shivraj Puri.

In his first information report (FIR) filed at DLF-II police station on Tuesday, Aggarwal has accused Shivraj Puri, who is at the centre of the scam, and others of falsification of accounts, breach of trust and criminal conspiracy.

Puri had convinced corporate and individual clients to hand over their money to him for a high-return investment scheme. Puri diverted the money into the market through different broking firms, whose officials are being questioned by the Gurgaon Police.

Several high net worth investors like Aggarwal and companies of the Hero Group have been caught in this fraud. The fraud was discovered over a month back and customers say there was first an attempt at settlement, before Citibank lodged an FIR with police.