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Viren Rastogi an influential UK -based businessman and his group of brothers- all major businessmen in the field of metal trading globally were charge -sheeted for fraudulent activities and duping nearly 20 banks including West LB, JP Morgan Chase and Dresdner Bank. This also includes some banks in India. There was a case filed against Viren Rastogi and he was sentenced to imprisonment for nearly nine and a half years. The court in Southwark Crown in UK legally made it clear that Rastogi is the master brain that worked behind the group of bogus international metal trades against which his company RBG Resources, and a sister company, Allied Deals. Reports have also confirmed that Narendra Rastogi, brother of Viren Rastogi in New York who runs the sister concern Allied Deals has a complaint of raising nearly millions of dollars in loans.


During the month of May in 2002, Rastogi and three others were arrested by FBI for cheating banks across the world which was estimated to be nearly 600 million dollars by obtaining finance for sham undertaking and then mortgaged and gave as security assurance for loans. During early 2000 the Central Bureau of investigation has set in motion a hot trailing of the four accused Rastogi brothers - Virendra, Narendra, Ravindra and Subash and recently it was due for the CBI to bring the third brother to India as the punishment assigned to the defendant found guilty by the court in the US was completed. Thus the concerned authorities of the US requested the Indian counterpart to send a panel for one of the Rastogi's repatriation who was accused and convicted of a crime of illegal export of scrap from India.

Thus the convicted was brought to India by a team of two members led by a Superintendent of Police to the US. But however after they were brought to India, the US confederate or the federal agency of the Government asked their Indian counterparts to give a detailed report on the grounds of various fields of the frauds committed by him in India before he fled to the US. A leading investigator one Mr.Paige Rumbletold that this case clearly showed the willingness to take surprisingly bold risks by the accused and hard- hearted well planned cheating that specified limits from the poorest areas of India to the corporate tower blocks of Manhattan. Viren Rastogi is likely to have the sentence he received greatly increased later in the following years if he does not act in accordance with the commands with what is expected to be the action of taking or seizing someone's property with authority, order running into hundreds of millions of pounds. He has been declared insolvent or bankrupt despite winding up believing he has significant assets around the world.

The Rastogi family, from India, put an edge on their bewildering fraud techniques first in Dubai and then in New York, before offices were set up in London's Piccadilly in 1996. In a very short span of time the business which was set up by the Rastogi's in United Kingdom was extremely prosperous and flourishing with a tremendous turnover of nearly $1bn and Viren drawing himself a salary of £650,000. Rastogi and his family were using "boiler rooms" around the world to manufacture a deceptive paper series to support their metals buying and selling scam. Without the knowledge to the lending banks and auditors, Rastogi was in control of more than 200 supposed trading counterparties at "brass plate" addresses in more than 20 different countries which is highly condemned. The scam was charted out in such a way that instead of shipping millions of tonnes of metals around the world, the network of misleading transactions very easily tossed cash lent from the banks - with a proportion being salted away in a maze of offshore trusts in the British Virgin Islands.

Finally the web of the scrap scam was fissured by a minute mistake which has brought it into the light towards the end of 2001. The confusion came up when about eight counterparty confirmation letters were mistakenly faxed from Hong Kong along with some routine paperwork to Pricewater house Coopers, RBG's auditors. The counterparties which received the confirmation letter are supposed to be the challenger or adversary working in other parts of the world, yet their signed paperwork had come through from the same far -east fax number. Within a span of two months period, PwC had got away as auditors. But however there was a number of records which stated that the business activities were showing continuous transactions at regular intervals of time. Also according to a report given by an accountancy firm in the scam related to Viren Rastogi, it resigned to the letter which added that the firm had even had doubts about the existence of the commodities if it has been involved in the transactions.

Viren Rastogi when he was about to be handed overed to the jurisdiction of India in which the crime was committed he pleaded at fault before the court of New Jersey where he was declared to be punished and be imprisoned till June 2008. A charge sheet was filed against the Rastogi brothers only after collecting evidence by the CBI team led under the leadership of the then Joint Director Neeraj Kumar who later was appointed as the Delhi Police Special Commissioner. The team led by Neeraj Kumar was also able to produce arrest warrant to Subash Rastogi and succeeded in the effort of repatriating or bringing back Ravindra Rastogi from Dubai who was accused or convicted in the Rastogi scam. The charge sheet which was filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation stated that all the purported five companies which were headed by the Rastogi brothers as its Directors was chief accused of the scam where they exported bicycle parts during 1995-96 to Russia and Hong Kong by heavily over invoicing the value of goods with the objective of dishonestly claiming excess duty drawback from the customs.

It was shocking news from the CBI to know that all the five companies run by the Rastogi's had formed a conspiracy and planned together to dodge the government and "knowingly over- invoiced the value of export goods by nearly 15 to 20 times. Also the report submitted by the CBI clearly stated that it was found that the buying of bicycle parts was not assisted by any authentic or legally acceptable purchase vouchers as the firms owned by the Rastogi brothers. This also paved way for the better understanding that there were no manufacturing facilities in the firms owned by the Rastogi brothers. There was only one address in Delhi, the country capital for all the five different companies which was owned by four of Rastogi brothers and one of their cousins. The charge sheet also stated to have taken place or to have a specified illegal or undesirable quality that during investigations it was disclosed that the so- called false supplier companies were found to be non-existing though payment for the claimed purchases have been shown by the accused through cheques.

The CBI later added that these explanations were opened to facilitate realization of cheques only. The Rastogis scam led to the probing of other associated companies too led by the same team of accused people where similar dodging method or modus operandi was used to export bicycle parts at heavily over- debited value to dishonestly offences which has claimed excess duty drawback. However for all these charge sheets filed against Rastogi he protested by stating that the cases were groundless without foundation suggesting auditors were focusing on just "3% to 4% of the total business". But however the concerned investigating teams including the police, lawyers and liquidators who were appointed to wind up the affairs of a company or firm which was declared to run illegal business. Most of the forgery activities documents including stamps and stationery which also includes hundreds of bogus counterparties related to the Rastogi brothers were all discovered in the boiler factories in Dubai, Singapore and Hong Kong headed by the Rastogi brothers.

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