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The crowd at the press conference might have been smaller and the big screen grainier but the allegations, as before, had the bite. Online media firm Cobrapost.com today made money-laundering allegations against a wider set of banks and financial institutions, including State Bank of India (SBI) and Life Insurance Corporation (LIC), and lashed out at the attempts of the government and the regulator to play down its similar expose in March.
Unveiling video footage of staff of over a dozen public-sector banks, four private-sector ones, besides the three named earlier and four life insurance firms - some banking licence aspirants - Cobrapost Editor Aniruddha Bahal told reporters: "Operation Red Spider 2 establishes that money laundering is not confined to private banks and is not an aberration, as being made out to be."
He claimed the undercover operation by his firm's associate editor, Syed Masroor Hasan, clearly established money-laundering services were being offered as a standard product across banks; even a walk-in customer could avail of these to launder unnacounted cash. (UNDER MONEY-LAUNDERING CLOUD)
Bahal said five banks were caught selling these services in their branches at Parliament Street. "Kanoon yahan nahi chalega toh kahan chalega? (If the law isn't followed on Parliament Street, where else will it?)"
The sting operations were carried out over six months across Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Delhi, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.
Lashing out at RBI, finance ministry and the banks named in the first expose, Bahal said: "They handed out clean chits to themselves on the premise there were only violations of KYC norms and, "no money laundering as no transaction took place". This is absurd. The officials caught on tape have demonstrably said they would engage in money laundering for our reporter. According to their own statements, they have done this plenty of times in the past and are eager to do it again. This amounts to clear offences under IPC, as well as PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act)."
Cobrapost also alleged these transactions were not confined to a few low-level front-office staff as was being made out to be in the "so-called inquiries".
"Our interactions with all officials, some of the ranks of divisional managers, territory managers, assistant general manager and vice-presidents with scores of branches under their charge, bear it out they are party to and facilitators of these transactions," Bahal said.
Even as all banks and insurance firms denied allegations, the finance ministry, in a communication to state-run lenders, said all employees alleged to be involved in violating norms should be suspended.
