The culprits being exposed this time are Life Insurance Corp of India, State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, Punjab National Bank, Canara Bank, Indian Bank, IDBI Bank, Yes Bank, Federal Bank, Reliance Capital, Birla Sunlife and many others, who together manage assets worth thousands of crores of rupees and have equally staggering deposits at their disposal, says Cobrapost.
"In some cases, we came across certain bankers who were plain crooks in the mould of bankers. For instance, we have a senior manager of Federal Bank who without blinking an eye says, 'Uske liye to hawala kar deta hoon,' when we seek his help to send England some of the crores to some of the relatives of 'our minister's' wife," Cobrapost added.
The Nexus between banks and insurance companies: Another fact that comes to the fore, from the Cobrapost investigation is a nexus between the banks and the insurance companies.
"Yes Bank has a tie-up with Bajaj Allianz, which would question an investor only when the investment crosses Rs1 crore, as we came to know from a Yes Bank official. And such investments can be done in cash. Whenever we went about proposing to bankers, public or private, that we wanted to invest our black money in insurance, they immediately called the managers of the their insurance associates to our presence or sought their advice on phone, making it amply clear that banks and insurance companies are hand in glove," it said.
Operation Red Spider 2 establishes that money laundering is not confined to private banks, and is not an aberration, as is being made out in certain quarters in the wake of the first expose on 14 March 2013 in which HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and Axis Bank were shown involved in money laundering.
According to Cobrapost, the defensive argument from the Reserve Bank of India, the Finance Ministry and the banks themselves has been that "There were only violation of KYC norms" and as such "No money laundering took place because no transaction took place".
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