EOW arrests man in BharatPe fraud case

The Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Delhi Police has arrested Amit Bansal, the key vendor in connection with the BharatPe fraud case, official sources said on Friday. They said Amit Kumar Bansal was arrested on August 6 and produced before a court that sent him to police custody for six days.

The accused is under police remand at the EOW office in Mandir Marg, New Delhi, and will be produced to the court on Monday.

The EOW had filed an FIR against BharatPe co-founder Ashneer Grover, his wife Madhuri Jain, and their family members Deepak Gupta, Suresh Jain, and Shwetank Jain in May 2023 in the Rs 81-crore fraud case.

In its remand application, the EOW had said the "details of 33 such non-existing vendors were identified and an inquiry was carried out, wherein it was revealed that the accused and his brother were associated with the said non-existing firms".

Earlier, in November, BharatPe reportedly filed a fresh case against Ashneer Grover after he shared details of BharatPe's Series E fundraise on social media site X (formerly Twitter). The fintech's parent company, Resilient Innovations, has sought an injunction against Ashneer Grover in the Delhi High Court for sharing confidential information about the company, as reported by The Economic Times.

It has accused Grover and his family of causing losses to the firm to the tune of about Rs 81.3 crore through illegitimate payments to bogus human-resource consultants, inflated and undue payments through pass-through vendors connected to the accused, sham transactions in input-tax credit and payment of penalty to Goods and Services Tax (GST) authorities, illegal payments to travel agencies, invoices forged by Jain and destruction of evidence.

(Disclaimer : With additional inputs from PTI)