Displaying items by tag: Fraud

Nigeria: Two employees of Dangote Cement accused of stealing cement have changed their pleas to guilty at the Ogun State High Court. The defendants allegedly diverted nine cement trucks, bound for Togo, using fake identity cards and truck number plates, according to the Business Day newspaper. The suspects are accused of stealing 800 bags of cement with a value of over US$40,000. The case continues.

Australia: Adelaide Brighton is seeking damages from a former credit manager over US$9m in missing funds. The cement producer has accused former employee Glenda Ivy Burgess of the embezzlement following an internal audit, according to the Advertiser newspaper. Burgess worked for Adelaide Brighton for 18 years but was dismissed in February 2018.

The allegations include misallocating customer payments, falsifying accounts, increasing customer credit limits without authority and providing false information.

The construction company launched a civil lawsuit against Burgess at the same time that a police investigation was ongoing. This has subsequently led to a clash between civil and criminal proceedings as the accused successfully petitioned the Supreme Court to delay the civil case whilst the criminal investigation continues.

India: Police have raided a factory near Cuttack, Odisha that has allegedly been selling repackaged cement. The unit purchased the franchise of a well-known cement brand and then used cement from damaged bags of the consignment to prepare unapproved mixtures, according to Odisha TV. The cement was then repackaged and supplied along with the original cement packets.

Up to 7500 fake cement bags, 300 bags of different cement brands and machinery was seized during the raid. The owner of the factory, Lalit Kumar Jain, was also arrested. He has disputed the allegations.

India: Vijaykumar Iyer, a resolution professional with Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India working for Binani Cement, has alleged that fraudulent transactions have taken place involving the promoters of the company. Iyer made an application in mid-March 2018 to the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) in Kolkata asking the court to take action and ‘appoint an appropriate investigation agency to investigate the directors of Binani Cement and the counter parties,’ according to the Economic Times. Sources quoted by the newspaper say that the application is likely to receive a hearing imminently. Binani Cement has denied the allegations.

Iyer’s application said that he had appointed Haribhakti & Co as a ‘forensic consultant’ in November 2017 for reviewing and identifying ‘suspect’ transactions. He said that since the inception of the corporate insolvency resolution process, he had not been provided access to all the required information and documents. He alleges that Binani Cement made several payments to ‘potentially related and/or connected customers and entities,’ such as Saraswati Sales (SSPL) and US$75.4m was outstanding at the end of November 2017, suggesting that sales were made to SSPL despite the fact that corresponding payments were not made to the corporate debtor. Other inconsistencies were also found suggesting that money was being removed from the business without paying outstanding debts.

Dalmia Bharat beat UltraTech Cement in a bidding war to buy Binani Cement for US$974m in early March 2018 in an auction was run by the National Company Law Tribunal under insolvency proceedings. However, UltraTech Cement has since made a US$1.11bn bid directly to Binani Cement to stop the insolvency process. UltraTech Cement has said it is ‘shocked’ by the allegations by Iyer and that it was unaware of any pending investigations when it made its latest offer.

Ukraine: Ukrcement, the Ukranian association of cement producers, has urged government agencies to be more effective in preventing sales of packaged cement. A study by Ukrcement with the NGO Union of Ukrainian Consumers has reportedly shown a rise in volumes of counterfeit product at large DIY retail chains.

"Ten samples [of packaged cement] were bought in several DIY supermarkets in Kyiv during the third phase of the project in early 2016. The conclusion is that the situation with counterfeit cement has been worsening. Violations have been revealed in all the chains," said Ukrcement CEO Roman Skylsky. "We insist on toughening oversight over the quality of cement programs and punishment for the sale of counterfeit products."

Trinidad & Tobago: The manager of Trinidad Cement Limited's Employees Credit Union, Darren Singh has been denied bail after he appeared before a Port-of-Spain Magistrate charged with fraudulently transferring US$50m from the credit union's Unit Trust Corporation account to a Republic Bank account.

It is alleged that Singh, with intent to defraud, caused the transfer of US$50m from the credit union UTC's account to a Republic Bank account at Tropical Plaza, Pointe-a-Pierre in the name of TCL Credit Union on 18 January 2013, using a forged UTC wire transfer.

Prosecutor Callister Charles objected to bail being granted on the basis of the nature and seriousness of the offence, as well as allegations that threats had been made to witnesses in the case. Singh's attorney Candice Lopez countered that her client was a married man with five children and was the sole breadwinner of the family. She also said that Singh was the manager of the TCL Credit Union, had no previous convictions and was prepared to abide by any condition laid down by the court.

Vietnam: The chairman of Ha Giang Cement JS Company has been prosecuted in a fraud case for an amount in excess of US$344,000.

Viet Nam News reports that police investigations dating back to September 2012 show that Vu Duy Chanh signed contracts to buy two mills without the approval of Ha Giang Cement's management board approval. Chanh then used the contracts as security for bank loans. One of the contracts was reportedly falsified to buy a fictitious machine while Chanh illegally used and sold the secondary machine at a diminished price.