India’s investigation into top Citigroup (NYSE: C) executives came and went quickly.
As has been widely publicized, the Indian government has brought a case against a Citi employee who may have forged bank accounts, documents and transactions to allegedly reap tens of millions of dollars. Indian police arrested that employee, Shivraj Puri, a relationship manager at a branch in Gurgaon, after a customer complained about seemingly shady transactions. This week, they also arrested Sanjay Gupta, a senior executive at a company called Hero Group, who also allegedly profited from Puri’s supposed actions. The customer, Sanjeev Aggarwal, has told Indian media outlets that he lost about 330 million rupees in the alleged scheme.
Following the arrests, media outlets reported that Aggarwal had also named Pandit and a few other executives, including CFO John Gerspach, Chief Operating Officer Douglas Peterson and former Senior Vice-Chairman William Rhodes, in his complaint with police. Indian police then named those executives in a “first information report,” or FIR, a preliminary document in an investigation.
On Tuesday, Citigroup said in a statement that the claims against top executives “are completely without basis” and that it would “contest them vigorously.” Reuters quoted an anonymous police official who said that “as far as we see, top management cannot be held responsible for activities at the branch.”
As such, as quickly as the claims were made, they seem to be quelled. Indian police appear to have cleared them of any wrongdoing.
