A member of the committee told Republica that the meeting chaired by Finance Minister Barsha Man Pun recommended that the panel be represented by Nepal Bankers Association (NBA), heads of different departments of the Ministry of Finance (MoF), representative from NRB´s Foreign Exchange Department.[break]
“The panel will speed up the ongoing investigation into cases of IC misappropriation and also find out reasons behind the rising cases of misappropriation of foreign currencies. It will also suggest measures to cope with the problem in coming days,” said the source.
Similarly, NRB has formed a three-member team led by its Deputy Director Chet Prasad Upreti to facilitate the ongoing investigation into the cases being carried out by DRI.
“The team will support the DRI´s team in investigating the documents related to foreign exchange abuses by traders. It will also verify and investigate the documents related to issuance of IC to the firms by the banks,” said the source.
Initial investigations have showed that documents produced by eight firms at NIC Bank´s Birgunj branch, seeking issuance of Rs 630 million worth of IC were fake.
“Almost all the customs declaration forms and other related documents submitted by those firms at the bank appeared to be related to fake imports worth Rs 261.6 million,” said Shanta Bahadur Shrestha, director general of DRI. “The findings of NIC suggest that transactions of other banks are suspicious as the same eight firms are involved in the transactions.”
DRI investigation shows that those firms have misappropriated around Rs 770 million by producing demand drafts and customs declaration forms at 10 different banks in Birgunj.
According to Shrestha, those firms withdrew Rs 630 million from NIC Bank, Rs 11.8 million from Everest Bank, Rs 32.3 million from Laxmi Bank, Rs 7.7 million from Nepal Bangladesh Bank, Rs 60.4 million from Siddhartha Bank and Rs 16.4 million from Nepal Investment Bank. Those firms are also found to have opened accounts with Sunrise Bank, Nabil Bank, Global Bank and Bank of Kathmandu.
Amid slow progress in investigation into the cases, DRI has requested the Department of Customs (DoC) to help it in verifying the documents.
An investigation carried out by the DRI had found Maxwell Computer, Shyam Galla Bhandar, Jaya Mata Di International, Digital World and GS Traders of producing nine fake customs declaration forms to withdraw huge amount of IC from different commercial banks.
DRI has also sealed the warehouses of Nitesh Brothers, Jaibaba Amar Nath and Gangotri Gallaghar in Birgunj and put Dinesh Gupta, proprietor of those firms, behind the bars.
In suspicion of abuse of foreign currencies, Shrestha said the DRI was initiating investigation in other bordering towns like Butwal, Itahari, Biratnagar and Nepalgunj.
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