In the third part of its tapes, Cobrapost claimed that it has recorded officials of Bank of India, Central Bank of India, Bank of Maharashtra, Allahabad Bank and Bank of Baroda, all major public sector banks, as well as IndusInd Bank, ING Vysya Bank, HDFC Bank , ICICI Bank and Axis Bank, among private sector banks. Officials of these banks allegedly offered to help a corrupt politician invest his black money into banking accounts and various insurance products.
In part one of its expose, Cobrapost had claimed that officials of ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank were willing to assist a corrupt politician to convert his corrupt money. In the second part, Cobrapost had unveiled secret tapes of 23 banks and insurance companies offering to help launder money. Among the 23 were SBI and Life Insurance Corporation among others.
“The RBI continues to act as a protector, and not as a regulator or enforcer. The RBI is loathe to admit that there exists a massive money laundering racket in our financial institutions across the board, flourishing under its very nose, simply because if it were to admit to this deep-rooted malaise, it would strip the RBI of its halo as ‘one of the best banking regulators’ in the world,” Cobrapost said.
New videos allegedly show bank officials offering to help the assistant of a corrupt politician to exploit the banking channels to route dirty money into the banks and insurance products.
The latest tapes covered 10 banking institutions, including HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and Axis Bank, which were already covered in the first part of the Cobrapost expose. In the third part, more officials of already named banks figure.
“The videos, across the large spectrum of such illegal activity, clearly prove that this is not simply the design of some criminally oriented officers, or for that matter, some young, front-office executive succumbing to performance pressures. It proves without doubt that this corruption is endemic, and spread through the Indian banking and insurance system,” a Cobrapost statement said.
