Seven year run for three bank fraud convicts ends

KATHMANDU, NOV 10 -

Police on Friday arrested three people convicted for banking fraud, who were at large for the last seven years.

The arrestees—Pradeep Ratna Tuladhar, Sarbagya Ratna Tuladhar and Amar Raj Tamrakar—were handed over to the Kathmandu District Court. They were associated with T and T Industries under the Mohan Sahni Group.

Responding to a case filed by the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority, the Special Court on October 30, 2005, had slapped Rs 396,926 fine on each of them. According to court verdict, they had caused Rs 1.58 million loss to Nepal Bank Limited.

Chief culprit in the case, Mohan Sahani was arrested on July 22, 2012 and was jailed. The court had fined him Rs 105 million.

The group had caused a loss of Rs 190 million to NBL, defaulting loans, according to police. Firms associated with the group had taken loans from NBL in an illegal way in collusion with bank employees.

They registered several firms just to take loans from the bank. The loans were provided against inferior collaterals such as land on river banks and sloppy lands, whose valuation were increased artificially, according to the details provided by the police. The firms had taken different types of loans such as hypothecation, overdraft, pre-export credit, trust recipient loans, advance on credit and opened letters of credit.

The Bank has already fired the employees involved in the fraud.

As a result of similar frauds at big scale, the oldest bank of the country landed in trouble and the government had to implement financial sector reform programme by taking loans from the World Bank.

Despite completion of the project, the bank is yet to recover. Currently, the bank is implementing a recapitalisation plan, for which the government has injected necessary funds.

Source: The Kathmandu Post