Police in India on Wednesday said top Citigroup executives cannot be held responsible for an alleged employee fraud at a bank branch, a day after they registered a case against executives including Chief Executive Vikram Pandit. Citigroup said last week it was investigating transactions based on what it said were documents forged by an employee at a branch in India.
A person familiar with the matter has told Reuters the transactions may involve between 3 billion and 4 billion rupees ($66 million to $88 million). Police in Gurgaon city on Tuesday registered a so-called first information report (FIR) against top Citigroup executives after Citigroup customer Sanjeev Aggarwal brought a complaint.
Aggarwal told Indian TV channels on Wednesday he lost about 330 million rupees in an alleged fraud. "The FIR is the complaint of Sanjeev Aggarwal. It is his perception, it is his version, it is his allegation," a top police official in Gurgaon told Reuters on Wednesday.
"But as far as we see, top management cannot be held responsible for activities at the branch," the official said. The Wall Street Journal and other media earlier reported Aggarwal's complaint named Pandit and other Citigroup executives, including former Senior Vice-Chairman William Rhodes, Chief Operating Officer Douglas Peterson and Chief Financial Officer John Gerspach.
Neither Aggarwal nor a Citigroup spokesman in India could immediately be reached for comment on Wednesday. Citigroup said in a statement on Tuesday that Aggarwal's "claims against senior executives are completely without basis" and that the company intended to "contest them vigorously".
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