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Swiss authorities freeze Ketan Parekh's account

Onkar Singh in New Delhi

The Swiss authorities on a formal request from the Central Bureau of Investigation have frozen an account belonging to 'big bull' Ketan Parekh and a Bahamas-based corporation which he had been operating for quite some time.

According to the CBI spokesperson, S M Khan, there are millions of Swiss francs in the account at Credit Suisse's Zurich branch. The Federal Department of Justice and Police, Switzerland, froze the said account 'a couple of days ago'.

The Swiss authorities had been alerted by the Interpol wing of the CBI a few months ago that Ketan Parekh might have siphoned off money from the Madhavpura Mercantile Co-operative Bank, Ahmedabad, and Bank of India, Bombay branch.

Acting on the request of the CBI, the money laundering control office of Switzerland, Federal Department of Justice and Police, said that there was account in Credit Suisse at Zurich. This account belonged to a corporation registered in Nassau, Bahamas.

According to Khan, the 'main beneficiary' of this account is stock broker Ketan Parekh.

Khan said that the route adopted by Parekh to take the money out of India was that he would send it to Bahamas from where it would be redirected to the Swiss bank account. The circuitous route was followed so that the transaction could not be traced back to him.

The CBI will send a letter rogatory to get the entire details of the account once the required criminal procedure is completed in Switzerland.

The CBI has also requested the Swiss authorities to investigate other related and suspicious transactions made by Ketan Parekh.

Parekh was arrested in April this year for his involvement in the multi-billion-rupee stock market scam and for cheating MMCB and BoI to the tune of billions of rupees.

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