Pune: The Directorate of Enforcement (ED) has busted a major car financing racket involving officials of a public sector bank. Several luxury cars have been seized in this connection.
Investigators have come to know that borrowers used forged documents to avail loans worth crores. They were aided by bank officials.
The racket, which has been in operation for some time, had caused huge losses to a public sector bank, the agency said.
During searches, the ED seized expensive cars, including a BMW, a Volvo, a Land Cruiser and a Mercedes-Benz. The probe agency took up the matter after FIRs were lodged with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Shivaji Nagar Police Station in Pune.
ED officials conducted searches at 12 premises in Pune. The raids were carried out at locations linked to car loan borrowers, car dealers and the then branch manager of
a State Bank of India (SBI) branch.
The ED probe has revealed that during 2017-19, Amar Kulkarni, while serving as the chief manager at the SBI University Road branch in Pune, allegedly conspired with one Aditya Sethia, an auto loan counsellor, and a few borrowers.
“They cheated SBI by fraudulently processing and recommending high-value car loans,” ED said.
During the investigation, it was found that the accused borrowers allegedly got high-value car loans on “forged documents and cheated the banks.”
“Bank official Amar Kulkarni is accused of a conspiracy, improperly and dishonestly processing and recommending the high-value car loan proposals of the accused borrowers in violation of the lending policy of the bank. The bogus, forged documents were not verified,” the agency claimed.
In many car loan cases, fake quotations with inflated amounts were submitted to the bank to increase the margin money included in the loan, and the loans were approved using false documents.
While conducting searches, the ED identified several high-value cars including BMWs, Volvos, Mercedes and Land Rovers.
“After submitting fake documents, the borrowers purchased these high-end cars in conspiracy with the loan agents and the branch manager,” it was stated.