Bank fraud: ED slaps biggest FEMA notice on Kolkata firm

This is linked to a bank loan fraud case, they said. The central probe agency has charged Shree Ganesh Jewellery House (I) Ltd and its promoters by an order issued by the adjudicating authority of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) in Kolkata. The authority is a special director rank officer of the ED. The sources said the firm is among the top 100 wilful bank loan defaulters of the country, as per the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), and its three promoter brothers — Nilesh Parekh, Umesh Parekh and Kamlesh Parekh — are also being probed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI). Nilesh Parekh was arrested by the DRI in 2018.

The ED had also filed a money laundering case against the firm and its promoters in 2018 for allegedly defrauding a consortium of 25 banks to the tune of Rs 2,672 crore by way of availing credit facilities in terms of working capital loans and discounting of export bills from 20 nationalised banks and five private banks in Kolkata. The FEMA show cause notice has been issued after completion of an over year-long investigation and under various sections of the Forex law, the official sources said. The company and its promoters, as per the ED, have been charged under the FEMA “for resorting to unauthorised foreign exchange dealings, holding of foreign exchange outside India and willful siphoning off a whopping amount of Rs 7,220 crore as export proceeds”.