India’s Enforcement Directorate, a government agency that fights financial crime, will probe the possibility of money laundering in a $1.77 billion fraud case at the state-run Punjab National Bank (PNB), a finance ministry official said on Thursday.
PNB, the country’s second-largest state-run lender with assets of $120 billion, said in a regulatory filing that the fraud benefited “a few select account holders” and that it has reported the matter to law enforcement agencies.
This was an isolated case of a banking fraud and would be investigated by federal agencies, the finance official, who declined to be named as he was not authorized to speak to media, told Reuters.
