The CBI on Monday arrested three more persons in connection with the Rs 11,300 crore Punjab National Bank fraud case taking the total arrests to six till now.
Three PNB officials have been arrested late Monday evening, the CBI officials confirmed.
Those arrested include Bechhu Tiwari, Chief Manager and in charge of Forex department at the PNB Brady House branch in Mumbai. Tiwari was responsible for supervising the work of Gokulnath Shetty and his manager to ensure entry of authorised SWIFT messages was only from the system, according to the CBI. Shetty, who was a Deputy Manager at the Brandy branch of the PNB when the fraud took place, was arrested by the CBI last week after his involvement came to light. He retired in May last year. According to the CBI, Tiwari had full knowledge of the activities of Shetty.
The second arrest is of Yashwant Joshi, Scale II, Manager, Forex dept in the same branch. CBI officials said he was also responsible for supervising Shetty and ensure daily reports of swift and CBS entries. He had full knowledge of the activities of Shetty but took no action, said investigators.
The third arrest is of Praful Sawant, Scale I, Officer, Export, in the PNB branch. He was responsible for checking the SWIFT messages daily and preparing a report on the same. The CBI has begun searches at their residences located at Navi Mumbai, Andheri and Dombivili.
The central agency on Monday also continued its searches at office of Nirav Modi group at Peninsula Business Park at Lower Parel in Mumbai. Meanwhile, the searches at PNB Brady house Fort Mumbai by the CBI concluded late Monday evening.
Besides Gokulnath Shetty, the CBI had also arrested Manoj Kharat, single window operator at the same branch and Hemant Bhat, Authorised Signatory of the Nirav Modi Group of Firms last week. According to the CBI sleuths, Bhatt is the director in at least 15 companies linked to Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi.
The CBI probe into the larger conspiracy of the multi-crore bank fraud will now hinge on the interrogation of the six arrested accused.
Nirav Modi, along with his wife Ami, brother Nishal and uncle Choksi, left the country in the first week of January. The government has issued a look out circular against the four.