To buy her silence, accused made his wife co-owner of plot of land

All the accused — arrested or identified — in the Citibank case had made good ‘use’ of their relatives, including wives, by making them partners in the crime.

All the accused — arrested or identified — in the Citibank case had made good ‘use’ of their relatives, including wives, by making them partners in the crime.

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In an interesting incident, when wife of one of the accused had threatened to inform the police about the fraud, he made her co-owner of a piece of land bought by the scam money to buy her silence.

According to sources, the accused is a sacked official of Hero Corporate Services Limited.

The accused so far identified are Citibank relationship manager Shivraj Puri, HCSL associate vice-president Sanjay Gupta, Ganpat Singh and Gaurav Jain. Puri and Gupta have been arrested while two others are still on the run.

Puri had opened a joint account in Citibank in the name of his grandparents and mother in September 2009 and had fraudulently shown it as custodian account of Citibank and routed investments through it making the account holders partners in the scam.

Puri had also used accounts of his father’s company Normans Martin.

The police are on the lookout of Puri’s relatives.

Since Puri had estranged relations with his wife and she had been living separate, he did not involve her or used her name in any of the accounts.

Gupta who had allegedly received R20 crore as commission also had set up a joint account in the name of BG Finance at Axis Bank and with his wife as partner.

He opened another account as G2S Management Consultants with two employees Ganpat and Gaurav as partners to deposit the money.

Gupta had not only deposited R14.95 crore in BG Finance, he also had purchased one Maruti Zen car in the name of his wife Archana Gupta.

Gaurav Jain, on the other hand, had purchased a plot for R1.16 crore in the joint ownership of his wife Kiran, himself, Ganpat and Gupta.

However, the police disclosed in the court on Saturday that it was after Kiran who had got to know of the misdeeds and had threatened to inform the same to the police, Gurav had made her too co-owner of the plot.