2 Bank of Baroda officials suspended over Rs 6100 crore scam allegations

Government owned Bank of Baroda has suspended two senior officials and initiated investigation to verify if its internal systems were tempered that led to forex scam worth over Rs 6000 crore in its Delhi’s branch. On Saturday it emerged that there were suspicious transactions from its Delhi’s Ashok Vihar branch where US dollars equivalent to Rs 6172 crore were remitted to a counter party in Hong Kong.

Sources said searches were carried out by the CBI at the bank branches and private properties in connection with the shady remittances.

The unusual remittances were spotted in the audit report of the bank, the CBI sources said. According to media reports, between August 1, 2014 and August 12 this year, there were 8,667 forex transactions from the branch, prompting the bank to probe the matter. The bank’s internal audit found that the forex business of its Ashok Vihar branch rose 500 times to Rs 21,529 crore in 2014-15 over previous year which had reported forex business of Rs 45 crore, said media reports.