BharatPe fraud: EOW spots date discrepancies

livemint.com:

NEW DELHI : Recruitment firms linked to BharatPe co-founder Ashneer Grover and his family members used backdated invoices to siphon off funds for work they never did for the fintech unicorn, an investigation by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Delhi Police found. The probe agency also could not trace many firms to which BharatPe had made vendor payments.

Eight human resources (HR) consultancy firms hired by BharatPe—Vardhaman Marketing, Impulse Marketing, Vista Services, Evolve Bizserve, Team Source, Team Works, True Work Co., Vikash Enterprises—shared the same registered address with the accused family members and relatives, EOW said. Of these, the first five submitted invoices mentioning bank account numbers that were not open at the time, meaning the invoices were created at a later date.

“The firms were established and their bank accounts were opened only for the purpose of siphoning off funds and for causing wrongful gain to the alleged persons," EOW said in a status report submitted to the Delhi high court. Mint has seen a copy of the status report.

Anyesh Rai, deputy commissioner of police, EOW, confirmed that the status report has been filed with Delhi high court and the investigation is under way. In December 2022, BharatPe filed a criminal complaint against Grover, his wife and her family members, accusing them of perpetrating a ₹81.28 crore fraud.

One of the allegations pertained to ₹7.6 crore that BharatPe allegedly paid eight HR consultants linked to the accused persons between 2018 and 2021. After the Delhi Police filed a first information report (FIR), Grover and his wife moved the court to cancel it and pause the investigation; however, the court declined the request, and directed the probe agency to