"This was a truly audacious and ruthlessly efficient fraud"
Investigators have seized a hidden pension fund worth nearly £300,000 from a fraudster who was once one of Britain’s richest men.
Virendra Rastogi was once 209th in the Sunday Times Rich List.
Rastogi was the multi-millionaire chief executive of RBG Resources.
He and two other directors were prosecuted by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) in 2008 for a £400 million metal trading scam that ran between 1996 and 2002.
Rastogi, Anand Jain and Gautam Majumdar invented over 300 fake customers based at global addresses to con 20 banks into sending cash advances.
When authorities swooped in on his scam, the wealthy fraudster was caught stuffing documents into a shredder.
Southwark Crown Court heard it was a “desperate last-ditch attempt” to destroy incriminating documents and distance himself from a lengthy fraud that spanned across three continents.
Liquidators from Grant Thornton were sent to track down the assets.
The search did not lead them to a warehouse full of metal. Instead, they found numerous fake addresses, including a cow shed in India and a launderette in the United States.
Another bogus company address was the home of an elderly woman selling scrapbooks in New Jersey.
The court heard the 324 fake firms were apparently ordering vast quantities of metal from the USA, United Arab Emirates, Hong Kong and Singapore through Rastogi’s company.
RBG Resources was founded on fraud and riddled with nearly £500 million of debt.
During his hearing in 2008, Rastogi was described by the judge as the “real brains” behind the fraud. He was jailed for nine-and-a-half years.
Jain and Majumdar were jailed for eight-and-a-half years and seven-and-a-half years respectively.
At the time, the lead SFO investigator said:
“This was a truly audacious and ruthlessly efficient fraud that ranged from the poorest areas of India to the corporate tower blocks of Manhattan.”
In 2021, the SFO used new account forfeiture powers to seize £248,000 of the money generated by the fraud.
The SFO has now announced it had seized another £295,000 from the fraudster’s hidden pension funds. All the money is to be returned to the public purse.
Now known as Vareen Kumar or Veerain Kumarr, Rastogi is subject to an ongoing proceeds of crime investigation into his assets.
So far, nearly £6 million has been recovered. This includes the sale of his Marylebone home and the seizure of money and assets including expensive watches.
Nick Ephgrave QPM, Director of the Serious Fraud Office, said:
“Our work to bring justice doesn’t stop at conviction. We proactively seek out and pursue the proceeds of crime in whatever form they take, from pension pots to luxury watches, to ensure criminals like Rastogi don’t benefit from their crimes.”