Mumbai Police has arrested businessman Javed Azam in connection with a scam of Rs 122 crore in New India Cooperative Bank. The Economic Offenses Branch of Mumbai Police (EOW) detained Javed Azam (48) late on Monday night. This is the seventh arrest ever in this case. Further investigation is going on in this matter.
An official said, “During the investigation, EOW found that Javed Azam received Rs 18 crore through Unnathan Arunachalam, one of the arrested accused. Azam, a resident of Kandivali, does business of distribution of electrical goods .. Unnahanathan Arunachalam associated with similar business came in contact some time ago.
He said that in the investigation, it has been found that Unnahan and his father Manohar Arunachalam have rigged Rs 33 crore from the bank. Hitesh Mehta, former general manager of the bank and head of accounts, who is the main accused in this case, gave Rs 15 crore to Manohar in the year 2019. After that he gave 18 crore rupees in his office, which was handed over to Azam.
According to the police, Rs 122 crore was withdrawn from the chests of Prabhadevi and Goregaon offices of New India Cooperative Bank in Mumbai. Some more people have also been nominated as the desired accused. These include former president of the bank Hiren Bhanu and his wife, former vice -president Gauri Bhanu, who fled abroad just before the scam surfaced.
Last week, Mumbai Police conducted a polygraph test on the main accused Hitesh Mehta. This test, also known as the Lai Detector Test, was performed on Mehta at a forensic science laboratory in Kalina area of ​​the city. According to EOW sources, the results of this test indicate possible deception in Hidesh Mehta’s answers.
Let us tell you that this scam came to light when the Reserve Bank of India had investigated the cash safe of the bank. After this, a case was registered at Dadar police station, which was later handed over to the Economic Offenses Branch. The main accused in this case so far, Hitesh Mehta, former CEO of the bank, Abhimanyu and real estate developer Dharmesh Paun have been arrested.