Germany set to extradite bank scam accused

At least one of the dozens of pending extradition requests has met with success. Amarendra Nath Ghosh, prime accused in the six-year-old Kol...

At least one of the dozens of pending extradition requests has met with success. Amarendra Nath Ghosh, prime accused in the six-year-old Kolkata bank scam will be returning home from Munich within a week8217;s time. He is one of the the most important economic offenders whose extradition has been ordered following his escape to Germany and the Interpol issuing a non-bailable warrant against him in 2002.

A team of the Central Bureau of Investigation CBI is shortly to leave for Munich to escort Ghosh back. The extradition has been ordered on the basis of a chargesheet for banking frauds committed by him in connivance with officials of the Allahabad Bank and the Punjab National Bank totalling Rs 10.8 crore. In addition to this, Ghosh has three more cases for bank frauds totalling Rs 17 crore pending against him.

CBI officials say that Ghosh has made a final effort to stay back in Munich by filing an appeal to the Supreme Court, but have been told through diplomatic channels that the appeal was sure to be dismissed and the accused finally extradited.

Ghosh is the director of a company called Mafcon International and from 1994-95 in connivance with top Kolkata-based officials of the Allahabad and the Punjab National Bank. He had perfected a modus operandi of getting high-value bankers cheques issued in the name of fictitious persons without depositing any money in the bank. After depositing the bankers cheques in the fictitious accounts, he used to get the amounts withdrawn through his nominees and misappropriate the whole amount.

The managers had also been chargesheeted and faced trial in Kolkata. Only Ghosh managed to escape to Germany and had to be declared a Proclaimed Offender.

Ritu Sarin

Ritu Sarin is Executive Editor (News and Investigations) at The Indian Express group. Her areas of specialisation include internal security, money laundering and corruption. Sarin is one of India’s most renowned reporters and has a career in journalism of over four decades. She is a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) since 1999 and since early 2023, a member of its Board of Directors. She has also been a founder member of the ICIJ Network Committee (INC). She has, to begin with, alone, and later led teams which have worked on ICIJ’s Offshore Leaks, Swiss Leaks, the Pulitzer Prize winning Panama Papers, Paradise Papers, Implant Files, Fincen Files, Pandora Papers, the Uber Files and Deforestation Inc. She has conducted investigative journalism workshops and addressed investigative journalism conferences with a specialisation on collaborative journalism in several countries. ... Read More