HDFC Bank — LC racket

Address: Mumbai City, Maharashtra, 400001

Website: Hdfc.com

HDFC Bank Manager arrested for LC fraud A day after the arrest of an ICICI Bank employee by Mumbai Police for illegally withdrawing Rs.49 lakh from a dormant account, another such case has come to the fore wherein an HDFC Bank employee was found to have aided racketeers to withdraw approximately Rs.15 crore. On January 3, police personnel from the MRA Marg police station arrested Umesh Sakharkar, Manager (NRI Banking Branch, HDFC bank), in connection with the Letter of Credit (LC) racket, in which The Ratnakar Bank Ltd. was duped to the tune of nearly Rs.15 crore. The involvement of an HDFC bank employee in the racket was first highlighted by the ADC in its report ‘Private bank employee involved in LC racket’ (Dec. 23, 2013). The police were probing the LC racket case for more than a month and arrested Shwetal Sakaria (Managing Director of Arihant Chemicals and Resins (I) Pvt. Ltd.), his partner Ahilesh Shah and their aide Himanshu Bhatt. According to the police, Shwetal had formed a dummy company named Mahavir Enterprises and his aide Bhatt had approached The Ratnakar Bank. Subsequently, Bhatt presented three LCs on behalf of Shwetal to the bank and successfully procured nearly Rs.15 crore in total. The LCs given by the accused to The Ratnakar Bank belonged to HDFC bank, which turned out to be forged