Police find 12 more Puri accounts

With each passing day, city police officials are unearthing new bank accounts allegedly opened by prime accused in the Citibank scam, Shivraj Puri. Sanjeev K Ahuja reports.

With each passing day, city police officials are unearthing new bank accounts allegedly opened by prime accused in the Citibank scam, Shivraj Puri.

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Chartered accountants, assisting the police in the R400-crore fraud probe, have spotted about 12 more current accounts Puri had opened in fictitious names in various banks for routing the money from his own and relatives’ accounts. According to sources, the investigating officials suspect that the total number of accounts opened by Puri could be about 40.

Interestingly, investigating officials have also found that all the investment being done through these fake accounts was not being made in the stock market. He had also invested in real estate. Within a few days of the Citibank fraud coming to light, the police had claimed that Puri used to operate through 18 accounts.

Of these, eight belonged to his father’s forex company — Normans Martin.

Another ten accounts were in the names of his relatives such as maternal grandparents Premnath (two accounts) and Shaila Premnath (one account), mother Diksha Puri (two accounts), father Raghuraj Puri (two accounts), and some others. Recently, investigating officials had spotted two accounts in fake names opened by Puri. But the latest figure now stands at 32 accounts.