STERLING BIOTECH PROMOTERS ‘FUGITIVE ECONOMIC OFFENDERS’

NEW DELHI: A Delhi court on Monday declared the Sandesara brothers, Nitin and Chetan Sandesara, the latter’s wife Dipti and close associate Hitesh Kumar Patel fugitive economic offenders, allowing government agencies to confiscate their properties in India and abroad to recover the money they are alleged to have swindled.

The Sandesara brothers, promoters of the Gujarat-based pharmaceutical company Sterling Biotech Ltd, who fled India sometime in 2017, are accused of swindling several banks to the tune of ₹14,500 crore by taking loans and laundering the money in other countries.

The fraud is considered to be one of the biggest banking scams in recent times; it involves an amount larger than that owed by former liquor baron Vijay Mallya and diamond trader Nirav Modi. Before the Sandesaras and Patel, only Mallya and Modi, both of whom are in the UK, had been declared fugitive economic offenders.People familiar with the location of the Sandesaras said that they were last seen in Nigeria, but intelligence agencies have suggested that they could be in the United States, the United Kingdom or the United Arab Emirates. Additional sessions judge at the Patiala House Courts Dharmender Rana, while declaring Sandesaras and HItesh Patel fugitives under the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act 2018, said: “I have no hesitation in observing that this court is satisfied that the ED {Enforcement Directorate} has successfully pleaded and proved that the respondents herein are fugitive economic offenders”.