Double Crossed Swindles..! ED claims Sterling Biotech scam to be much bigger than PNB scam

New Delhi, June 29: Heading ahead in the investigations of the Sterling Biotech Ltd scam, the Enforcement Directorate has staunchly claimed that the Sandesara brothers scam was much bigger than the fraud committed by PNB scam accused Nirav Modi. 

  

With the speculative links attached to Congress MP Ahmed Patel, the ED further said that the Sandesara Group and its main promoters, namely Nitin Sandesara, Chetan Sandesara and Deepti Sandesara, cheated the Indian banks to the tune of over Rs 14,500 crore, as against diamantaire Nirav Modi, who committed bank fraud to the tune of Rs 11,400 crore.

 

 

The agency registered a case after CBI lodged an FIR in October 2017 on account of cheating and bank fraud to the tune of Rs 5383 crore against the said company and its promoters. Further during the investigation, it was revealed that overseas companies of Sandesara Group had availed a loan of around Rs 9000 crore from foreign branches of Indian banks.

The official mentioning that the SBL Group had obtained both Indian and foreign currency loans from Indian banks, he said that the loans were sanctioned by a consortium of banks led by Andhra Bank, UCO Bank, State Bank of India, Allahabad Bank and Bank of India.

 

It was on 27 this month that the ED had attached properties worth Rs 9778 crore of Sandesara Group in the aforesaid bank fraud case.

 

The attached properties include four oil rigs and oil field, namely OML 143 in Nigeria, which are held by Sterling Energy Exploration Pvt Co Ltd (SEEPCO) Nigeria, ships, namely Tulja Bhawani, Varinda, Bhavya, Brahmani, which are registered in Panama and held in the name of Atlantic Blue Water Services, Aircraft 200 Gulfstream registered in the US held by M/s SAIB LLC and a residential flat in London.