More frauds on the prowl

While we all going rah-rah-rah over Vijay Mallya and how he has duped us, the honest taxpayers of over Rs.7000 crore, did you know there are five companies – Winsome Diamonds, Zoom Developers, REI Agro, Forever Precious Diamonds and Deccan Chronicle which have duped banks of Rs.18,000 crore?

Zoom has an exposure of Rs.2800 crore, Winsome of Rs.4600 crore, Forever Precious of Rs.2121 crore, basmati rice exporter and also a co-owner of IPL team, Delhi Daredevils, REI Agro of Rs.4000 crore. The fraud by Deccan Chronicle of Rs.5000 crore, whose promoter was inspired by Vijay Mallya himself is now a part of folklore. The collectuve fraud of all these five runs over Rs.18,000crore.

All these five, RBI has declared them as frauds but Kingfisher is different – there the RBI has given the label of ‘wilful defauler’ and not a fraud. Mallya is willful defaulter because he had the money and was not paying while the others have diverted bank funds to overseas or shell companies.

Two commonalities – both the set – Mallya and the five companies all have defaulted on payments and on both cases, whatever be the label – willful defaulter or fraud, none of the promoters have been arrested and not a single paisa of money has come back to the banks. What does this say about our entire machinery, RBI, CBI and et al?