The CBI today questioned three deputy general managers of Punjab National Bank in connection with its probe into the fraudulent issuance of Letters of Undertaking (LoUs) to jewellers Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi, agency officials said.
The agency also confronted the 12 accused arrested by it with the material seized during searches, documents and each others' statements so far, the officials said.
The CBI had arrested Vipul Ambani, president (finance) of Fire Star Diamond, executive assistant Kavita Mankikar and senior executive Arjun Patil (all of Modi's companies) on Tuesday.
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From PNB, the agency had arrested Rajesh Jindal, a general manager, retired official Gokulnath Shetty and Single Window Operator Manoj Kharat besides three other officials - Bechhu Tiwari, Yashwant Joshi and Praful Sawant.
Shetty and Kharat allegedly sent messages of the LoUs using an international messaging system for banking systems called SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication), which is used to pass instructions among banks globally to transfer funds, but did not make entries in the bank's system to avoid detection.
Based on these instructions and guarantees, funds were released by overseas branches of Indian banks.
It is alleged that Rs 11, 400 crore of LoUs were fraudulently issued to the firms of Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi.
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