mumbai

Updated: Oct 08, 2019 23:55 IST

The four arrested accused in the ₹4,355-crore Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative Bank (PMC) fraud — the bank’s former managing director Joy Thomas, ex-chairman Waryam Singh, Housing Development Infrastructure Limited (HDIL’s) directors Rakesh Kumar and Sarang Wadhawan — were in regular contact with each other when the alleged crime was happening. This was revealed by the phone call records of the four, Economic Offences Wing (EOW) officials told Hindustan Times on Tuesday.

Last week, the Mumbai Police’s EOW registered a first-information report (FIR) in the case of financial irregularities at PMC Bank on a complaint by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Bank officials allegedly allowed unlawful loans between 2008 and 2019 and even when there were defaults on repayments for years, would not classify these loans as non-performing assets (NPAs).

“We have obtained the 2008 phone records of all the four accused from cellular network service providers. On analysing them, we found more than five dozen phone calls between the accused during the period of the alleged crime. This clearly indicates the accused were in regular contact with each other during the crime,” said an EOW official, requesting anonymity.

The EOW special investigation team’s (SIT) probe has so far revealed that to hide the HDIL’s 44 bad loan accounts, Thomas used the cover of 20,149 loan accounts, which were the bank’s dormant accounts and some of them were fictitious. Investigators are trying to find out whose brainchild was it and were the other accused involved in planning this. The accused are being interrogated separately by separate officers, EOW sources said.

Another official said Thomas had told Wadhawans that owing to HDIL’s loan defaults, the bank may soon declare them as NPAs. On this, Wadhawans allegedly threatened Thomas with dire consequences if he did so. Thomas in the past had also reportedly told mediapersons that he feared for his life.

Fearing the other accused may harm Thomas, who is the key accused in the fraud, the EOW has decided to keep him in a separate cell.

“Thomas has been lodged in the Azad Maidan police lock-up, while the Wadhawans and Waryam Singh have been lodged in the crime branch unit-1 lock-up in the police commissioner’s office compound in Crawford Market,” said another EOW officer.

Keeping them separately will also ensure that they do not interact with each other and make any plan to dodge investigators, the officer added.

The Wadhawans and Waryam Singh will be produced in court on Wednesday. Thomas is in police custody up to October 17. All four are facing charges of cheating, forgery, criminal breach of trust and criminal conspiracy.