After Nirav Modi, now Rotomac Pens owner Vikram Kothari goes missing with over Rs 800 crore

New Delhi: Days after, country's second-largest public sector lender Punjab National Bank (PNB) Rs 11,400 crore fraud came to light, where billionaire diamantaire Nirav Modi and his maternal Mehul Choksi were the main accused in the scam.

Now, another multi-crore fraud was reported, where the promoter of Rotomac Pens, Vikram Kothari has been accused of fleeing with loans of more than Rs 800 crore from various state-run banks in the country.

Vikram Kothari, who is the promoter of Kanpur-based firm Rotomac Pens has allegedly gone abroad after swindling more than Rs 800 crore from five public sector banks. Allahabad Bank, Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, Indian Overseas Bank and Union Bank of India compromised their rules to sanction loans to Rotomac, sources said. 

Vikram Kothari took a loan of Rs 485 crore from Mumbai-based Union Bank of India and a loan of Rs 352 crore from Kolkata-based Allahabad Bank. A year later, Kothari has reportedly not paid back either the interest or the loan. 

Last year, Bank of Baroda (BoB), a consortium partner declared pen manufacturer Rotomac Global Pvt Ltd as "wilful defaulter". 

The company then moved to Allahabad High Court seeking removal of its name from the list of wilful defaulter. A division bench comprising Chief Justice D B Bhosle and Justice Yashwant Verma had passed the order on a petition filed by the company, contending that it has been wrongly declared a "wilful defaulter" by BoB despite having "offered assets worth more than Rs 300 crore to the bank since the date of default". 

According to the procedure laid down by the Reserve Bank of India, Rotomac was declared a wilful defaulter vide an order dated February 27, 2017, passed by an authorised committee.

This development comes less than a week after state lender PNB had detected about Rs 11,400 crore scam wherein Nirav Modi allegedly acquired fraudulent letters of undertaking (LoUs) from a branch in Mumbai to secure overseas credit from other Indian lenders.

The PNB fraud pertains to issuance of fake LoUs to companies associated with billionaire jeweller Nirav Modi by errant PNB employees, which enabled these companies to raise buyers credit from international branches of other Indian lenders. 

Last month, PNB had lodged an FIR with CBI stating that fraudulent LoUs worth Rs 280.7 crore was first issued on January 16. At the time, PNB had said it was digging into records to examine the magnitude of the fraud. 

In the complaint, PNB had named three diamond firms — Diamonds R Us, Solar Exports and Stellar Diamonds — saying they had approached it on January 16 with a request for buyers credit for making payment to overseas suppliers.