SFIO will also trace Satyam money trail

The sources said that for the earlier investigation report to be accepted,the Ministry must have the trail of the funds. Indications of third party transactions to the tune of Rs 600 crore is suspected in the IT firm,the sources said,while American Depositories Receipts worth USD 100 million were not traceable,the SFIO report had earlier pointed out. ADRs are the shares of a non-U S company traded in the US financial markets.

Also,the investigations had suggested that money could have been diverted part of its foreign earnings to tax havens like Mauritius before routing it back to Maytas Infra and other entities owned by Raju and his relatives. The SFIO report had pointed out that the Mauritius-based investment firm SRS Orion Investment had invested heavily into Maytas Infra as well as Maytas Properties,another subsidiary firm owned by the Rajus. However,the investigating agency had not been able to trace the diversion of funds as such. Earlier,the government had ordered an SFIO probe in January into the Satyam scam soon after its founder and former chairman B Ramalinga Raju admitted to a Rs 7,800 crore fraud at the company,wherein he disclosed that he had falsified profits for several years.

Later,in April,SFIO had submitted a 14,000 pages report to the ministry,giving a clean chit to the independent directors including Vinod Dham,Manglam Srinivasan,K G Palepu and T R Prasad.

Though auditors of the IT firm — S Gopalakrishnan and Talluri Srinivas –were found guilty by the SFIO,which said the auditors kept silent,despite knowing about the failure of the IT firm’s audit system in 2007.

The CBI,which also probed the matter and has already filed a chargesheet,is also tracking the funds and will file a supplementary chargesheet soon. The Enforcement Directorate is also probing the scam in case of alleged money laundering. The ED stepped into the multi-crore rupee fraud in Satyam after it claimed to have found prima facie evidence against Raju and others of violating the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. The ED alleged that several hundred crore rupees had been diverted from the Satyam Computer accounts and had been invested in purchasing land and other infrastructure for Maytas.