Mumbai: The Mumbai Police Economic Offences Wing (EOW) investigations into the Rs 122 crore cash embezzlement from the India New Cooperative Bank vaults has detected over 2000 non performing assets (NPA) which will take several weeks to quantify due to paucity of resources.
“A dedicated team of police officers with financial and banking experts is examining voluminous data of bank accounts, ledgers and balance sheets to determine the total amount of bad loans written off by the bank,” confirmed a senior EOW official.
The EOW investigation team is burning the proverbial midnight oil to scrutinise the huge paper trial and account books with a fine tooth and nail to identify dubious loans and irregular over drafts provided to high risk accounts.
“All banking norms were blatantly violated from clearing loans to cash advances which were later written off as non performing assets. The internal and external auditors failed to flag the irregularities for over five years,” said another police official expressing shock at the magnitude of the scam running into several thousand crore from the initial Rs 122 cash withdrawals from the bank vaults.
“The paucity of resources and men will take weeks to study the bank accounts and balance sheets from 2011-2025 and quantify the amount siphoned by way of loans, advances and debt sold to asset recovery and restructuring financial services,” added the police official.
Meanwhile, the Matunga police have registered a First Information Report (FIR) following a complaint filed by the Konkan Railway Region (Urban) Cooperative Credit Society for alleged Rs 2.4 crore loans granted by New India Cooperative Bank to 48 borrowers who posed as Konkan Railway Corporation Ltd (KRCL) employees. The credit society had partnered with New India Cooperative Bank to provide loans to KRCL employees.
The scam began to unravel in 2022 when the bank issued notices stating that 48 loans had become Non-Performing Assets (NPAs) leading to the credit society appointing auditors that led to 48 individuals falsely shown as KRCL staff submitting fake employment records for securing loans worth Rs 2.40 crore of which ₹2.11 crore remains unpaid.
Last week the EOW had issued notices to Omkara asset reconstruction company (ARC) for several NPAs taken over from the bank allegedly at low valuation.
Omkara ARC denied any wrongdoing in a statement claiming “Omkara ARC adheres to the highest levels of transparency and functions within the tight regulatory framework. The NPAs under discussion were acquired in accordance through a legal public auction process, where the valuations are guided by market forces and asset quality.”
Omkara said “our engagement with New India Cooperative Bank was strictly limited to the acquisition of NPAs in March 2018 completed through a transparent public auction…(we) adhere to the highest standards of governance, financial stability and regulatory compliance.”
