Ex-president of private company arrested for misappropriating Rs 30 crore

Accused Ajay Khera worked as executive director of Central Warehousing Corporation and he took voluntary retirement to join as president at World Window India Impex -- a group company of Seagull Maritime Agencies, they said.A probe was initiated by the Economic Offences Wing of Delhi Police after the director of Seagull Maritime Agencies lodged a complaint against Khera, police said.

A former president of World Window India Impex was arrested for allegedly misappropriating funds worth Rs 30 crore and cheating the company authorities, police said on Wednesday. Accused Ajay Khera worked as executive director of Central Warehousing Corporation and he took voluntary retirement to join as president at World Window India Impex -- a group company of Seagull Maritime Agencies, they said.

A probe was initiated by the Economic Offences Wing of Delhi Police after the director of Seagull Maritime Agencies lodged a complaint against Khera, police said. The company deals in freight forwarding business in India.

Ravindra Singh Yadav, Special Commissioner of Police (Crime), said, ''In 2010, Seagull started a branch in the USA. The accused (ex-employee of Group Company) who was working with the company as legal consultant, requested the ex-promoters of Seagull to employ his son (Siddharth Khera) to look after the USA branch of Seagull. Accordingly, Siddharth Khera was appointed as Business Development Manager at the USA branch of Seagull. Seagull was running its business smoothly. However, it was noticed that the revenue per annum of Seagull declined steadily from the highs of 2018 to the severe low in July 2021.'' The officer said on analysing the reason, it was revealed that the accused persons had incorporated two companies named Azure Freight and Logistics LLP (November 2020) and Azure International LLC (June 2020) and started parallel business by taking away clientele of Seagull through misrepresentation and forgery.

Further enquiry in the case revealed that Khera and his son forged bills of invoices and funnelled payments to their companies, he said.

While resigning, the accused persons also replaced the original hard drives of their computers. Using this modus operandi, they caused a wrongful loss of Rs 30 crore or more to the complainant company and wrongful gain to themselves, the officer added.

During investigation, documents and other information was analysed. Police found that the accused had siphoned off a huge sum of money to their companies' accounts, he said.

According to police, a team was sent to arrest Khera who lived in Mayur Vihar.

Police said he was the executive director at CWC and took voluntary retirement. He then joined the complainant's company as its head. His son has not been arrested yet, they said.

Police said they are investigating the matter as they suspect that the father-son duo worked in connivance with some officials at Seagull.

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