Brothers fighting fraud charges in India, flourishing in Nigeria
Nitin Sandesara and Chetankumar Sandesara owners of Sterling Oil Exploration and Energy Production Company (SEEPCO) and Sterling Global Oil Resources Ltd are said to be enjoying state protection in Nigeria effectively insulating them from prosecution in India. A report by Bloomberg noted that the selection of a firm owned by the family of the duo […]
Nitin Sandesara and Chetankumar Sandesara owners of Sterling Oil Exploration and Energy Production Company (SEEPCO) and Sterling Global Oil Resources Ltd are said to be enjoying state protection in Nigeria effectively insulating them from prosecution in India.
A report by Bloomberg noted that the selection of a firm owned by the family of the duo branded as fugitives by India to drill wells for the project is just the latest sign of how Nigeria has provided the brothers a haven, effectively insulating them from troubles back home.
SEEPCO is the NNPCL partner in the multi-billion dollar Kolmani River oil and gas field, the celebrated discovery of as many as 1 billion barrels of oil in Gombe State.
Beginning in the 1980s, the brothers transformed a family tea-trading business into a Mumbai-headquartered conglomerate spanning oil and gas, health care, construction and engineering and owning one of the world’s largest manufacturers of pharmaceutical grade gelatin. By the early 2010s, the group said it was valued at almost $7 billion.
Some of that expansion was bankrolled by a “well calculated economic fraud” that left the group owing more than 140 billion rupees ($1.71 billion) to public lenders including State Bank of India (SBIN), Bank of Baroda (BOB) and Union Bank of India (UNBK), the CBI told the country’s Supreme Court a year ago.
Among accusations leveled against them include the use of “false and fabricated documents” to secure bank loans and the diversion of funds overseas. The same lenders also provided credit lines to the entity that owned the Nigerian oil business, the CBI said in a December 2019 charge sheet.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has accused the tycoons of absconding after defrauding public banks of more than $1.7 billion.
The report noted that the Nigerian government has refused India’s request to extradite them. The Nigeria authority refused to arrest them four years ago saying the Indian allegations “appeared to be political in nature,” according to a letter published by the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.
According to the report, the Sandesara brothers, Gujarati businessmen who left India in 2017, deny cheating their lenders and say they are victims of political persecution.
They say the Modi government has a vendetta against the Sandesaras because of their ties to opposition and Muslim politicians, according to media reports that cite their filings in other court cases.
An Indian lawyer for the Sandesaras did not respond to multiple emails requesting comment. The group chairman and two directors of the Nigerian oil companies didn’t reply to questions sent by Bloomberg.
The CBI, ED and the Sandesaras’ main creditors also didn’t address queries on the status of the proceedings against the brothers.
Ironically, even as the Indian government was building its case against the pair, their Nigerian companies supplied cargoes of crude worth almost $1.5 billion to India’s state-owned refineries in the seven years to January 2020, the brothers said in court filings.