Mumbai: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has launched an investigation against two officials previously associated with MMTC Transnational Pte. Ltd (MTPL) in connection with the alleged default in repayment of dues to public sector banks.
M/s MTPL, is a subsidiary of Minerals and Metals Trading Corporation Limited (MMTC Ltd), a wholly owned government subsidiary. MTPL was set up in Singapore to deal in international trading of various commodities. The CBI had last week registered a case on charges of cheating and criminal conspiracy.
According to the CBI, a complaint dated 04.10.2023 was received from Abhay Kumar, General Manager (Marketing), M/s. MMTC Ltd,, against two senior officials who were working on deputation with MTPL and Director of a Singapore and Pune based companies.
MMTC Limited received a communication, from UCO Bank in Singapore addressed to MTPL with a copy marked to MMTC Ltd. informing that MTPL was unable to settle its import liabilities amounting to USD 7.60 million with the Bank. Bank of India also sent a letter to MTPL asking for repayment of USD 3.42 million.
The complaint was taken up for enquiry by the CBI by registering a Preliminary Enquiry (PE) on 03.04.2024. The PE revealed that the operations MTPL Singapore were managed by two officials holding posts on deputation.
The enquiry revealed that Director of the private companies had visited the office of MTPL Singapore and met the accused public servants. The object of this meeting was to trade in edible oils including palm oil, Soya bean oil, sun flower oil using the Letter of Credit (LC) bank limits of MTPL.
The enquiry also revealed that between 2018 till 2023, the accused public servants by abusing their official position, favoured the Director of the said private companies to trade with MTPL without taking any legally secured credit like Bank Guarantee or Letter of Credit in violation of terms of Delegation of Powers MTPL.
The accused public servants allegedly allowed the Director to use the limits given by the banks in favour of MTPL without taking any legally secured credit like Bank Guarantee or LC.
Enquiry further revealed that in order to facilitate the use of banking limits given by the banks to MTPL, one of the public servant also received 29000 Singapore Dollars in his bank account from the account of the Director of the private companies.
