The End of a $600 Million Scam

The End of a $600 Million Scam

by Mark Stein  -  June 18, 2008

A man at the center of a $683 million fraud of nearly two dozen banks, including J.P. Morgan Chase, to obtain loans for a fake metals trading scheme, won't face additional prison time because of his cooperation with the government, federal prosecutors say.

Anil Anand, former chief financial officer of Allied Deals, Inc., a New Jersey metals-trading company, was sentenced this week to time served, which amounted to about seven months in prison, for his participation in swindling the banks.

While he avoided another prison stint, Anand, 46, of Plainsboro, New Jersey, is not off the hook financially. U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman ordered Anand, who now works as a chief financial officer for a pharmaceutical company, to forfeit $600 million and pay $683.6 million in restitution.

Anand was one of 15 people who were charged with obtaining loans by telling banks they needed financing for shipments of metals for customers in India and other locations. They used fake purchase orders and invoices to dupe banks and used new money to pay off old loans in what the government called a "sprawling, international Ponzi scheme."

Anand was integral to the scheme, helping to establish fake credit histories for sham customers, supplying them with false financial data to convince banks they were actual metal trading customers and soliciting bank loans, according to prosecutors.

The complex scheme also involved establishing a fake credit-reporting agency, to generate false credit reports to lend credit worthiness to sham companies. Also, the same metal was shipped between multiple customers at different ports around the world, using each transaction to obtain another loan.

Anand was arrested in May 2002 then pleaded guilty in December of that year, agreeing to help prosecutors in return for a reduction of a possible sentence of 22 years in prison. He later outlined the fraud for prosecutors, and provided testimony at one trial.

Among the other banks who were fleeced by the Piscataway, N.J.-based Allied Deals were PNC Financial Services Group Inc.; FleetBoston Financial Corp., which Bank of America acquired in 2004; Dresdner Bank of Germany, and China Trust Bank.

Along with Anand, 14 other people were charged. One was acquitted but the others pleaded guilty or were convicted either at trial in the United States or in Britain.

Narendra Rastogi, the former chief executive officer, was sentenced a seven-year prison term and ordered to pay $683.6 million in restitution. He also cooperated with prosecutors and received credit for the nearly six years he had already spent in jail.

His brother, Virendra Rastogi, who owned London-based RBG Resources, which cooperated with Allied Deals, was convicted in Britain last year and sentenced to a nine and one-half year sentence.

As for Mr. Anand, he must turn 20 percent of his annual income over to the federal government, for at least five years, said his lawyer, Kerry Lawrence.

It's unclear how much that will be, but even with at elevated executive pay levels, it isn't likely to be anything close to $1.2 billion.

by Elizabeth Olson

http://upstart.bizjournals.com/news/wire/2008/06/18/the-end-of-a-600-million-scam.html