visa scam netted $4M, alleges NAB

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Visa scam netted $4m, alleges NAB

By Leonie Wood

The Age (Melbourne), March 11, 2008

http://business.theage.com.au/visa-scam-ne...80311-1yqx.html

National Australia Bank has alleged that a Melbourne finance broker, Rajesh Narad, and his associates received about $4 million in cash commissions for organising the purchase of $22.8 million of Treasury bonds in a year-long scam involving immigration visas.

NAB's lawyers have told the Federal Court that investigations by the bank's fraud division indicate 228 potential immigrants from India and South Asia each paid Mr Narad or his assistant, Vishal Jadhav, cash sums ranging from $20,000 to $30,000 for acquiring the bonds.

In documents before the court, the bank describes the fees paid to Mr Narad's company, Easy Home Loans, as 'significant and disproportionate'.

Justice Mark Weinberg last week allowed lawyers acting on behalf of the Immigration Minister and, separately, Victoria Police to inspect and copy documents NAB's lawyers seized during raids on Mr Narad's offices and home late last year. The judge suggested the authorities might be considering laying criminal charges in relation to fraud and possible breaches of immigration laws.

The court also heard that a NAB employee at the centre of the alleged scam, Akshay Batra, a manager at NAB's business banking centre in Moorabbin, who organised bank loans for the visas, had not returned from holidays in India.

Mr Narad was the sole director of Easy Home Loans, a finance broker based in West Footscray.

NAB is suing Mr Batra and Mr Narad over their roles in acquiring the Treasury bonds using what the bank claims were fraudulent loan facilities. NAB's lawyers have alleged Mr Batra breached his duty to the bank and that it now has a right to recover any profit arising from that breach.

The bonds, each with a face value of $100,000, were used as evidence to bolster the financial credentials of 228 visa applicants from India and South Asia.

A senior NAB fraud investigator, Michael Griffiths, told Justice Weinberg that in recent months NAB had set up a telephone call centre in a bid to contact the 228 bondholders. About 140 were located and about 40 agreed to be interviewed personally.

Mr Griffiths said some of the bondholders spoke 'in great detail about how they came to be involved and how they came to be in possession of the Treasury bonds' and that 'the majority of those bondholders confirmed that they had paid a sum of commission to either Mr Narad or Mr Jadhav'.

Mr Griffiths said that at first the bondholders told NAB's investigators that they 'had been advised to say that they had paid only the sum of $1200. It was only when we pressed them to come forward that they acknowledged they paid $20,000 to $25,000.'

Mr Batra and Mr Narad are due to file defences within the next few weeks.

Mr Narad's lawyer, Howard Rapke of Holding Redlich, yesterday told BusinessDay that his client denied any wrongdoing.

'We deny we received commissions of the size that is being alleged,' Mr Rapke said. 'We deny any improper actions.'