Business Standard

Mumbai Police files chargesheet against five accused in NSEL scam

Image

ANI Mumbai

The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Mumbai Police has filed a chargesheet against five arrested accused in the Rs.5,600 crore National Spot Exchange Ltd, NSEL scam.

The Mumbai Police has also invoked the Maharashtra Protection of Interest of Depositors Act, which empowers the police to attach the immovable assets of the accused.

Speaking to reporters after filing the chargesheet in a Mumbai court, Joint Police Commissioner (Crime) Himanshu Roy said the matter is still being probed and more charge sheets will follow.

The NSEL scam surfaced in the the public domain after the National Spot Exchange Ltd failed to pay out its investors in commodity pair contracts after July 31, 2013.

 

It was subsequently found out that the most of underlying commodities never existed and buying and selling of commodities like steel, paddy, sugar, and ferrochrome etc. was being conducted only on paper.

Pair trades in various commodities were offered in one day forward contracts of T+2 and T+25 (sometimes even T + 35) payment terms (bought and sold at the same time). This offered an arbitrage opportunity of about 12-15 per cent per annum.

Investors who honored their T+2 payment obligation found that the National Spot Exchange neither had money nor commodities to honor their T+25 obligations to investors.

About 24 borrowers were given the funds by NSEL without any underlying commodity deposited by them. One of the borrowers took away around 1000 crores is NK Protein Ltd, which is owned by the son-in-law of ex chairman Shankarlal Guru.

About 15000 investors along with public sector units like MMTC and PEC were affected by the scam.

The ROC report on NSEL fraud has come down heavily on promoters and FTIL. It is found that a majority of board minutes of NSEL were fabricated as mobile locations of board members do not match.

Some of the warehouses mentioned on NSEL website did not exist and even the Settlement Guarantee Fund (SGF) which was supposed to be about Rs.839 crores vanished into thin air on July 29, 2013.

Anjani Sinha the sacked CEO and MD of the company tried to take all the blame on himself in an attempt to exonerate other promoters and filed an affidavit.

Don't miss the most important news and views of the day. Get them on our Telegram channel

First Published: Jan 07 2014 | 12:00 PM IST

Explore News