PMC Bank's Joy Thomas became Junaid Khan to marry PA, bought 10 properties

The Economic Offenses Wing of Mumbai police have been able to link Joy Thomas, the suspended managing director of Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative (PMC) bank fraud to 10 properties bought over the last seven years, a senior police officer has claimed.

The officer said Joy Thomas had acquired these properties after he changed his name to Junaid Khan, the alias that he had acquired to marry his one-time personal assistant. It was in this name that Junaid and his second wife appear to have bought 10 properties.

Most of these assets - co-owned by the couple - were bought after 2012.

This is around the same time that the first set of irregularities in the PMC bank’s loan fraud, which blew up last month, have been noticed. The EOW have, however, not been able to establish if there is a link between the 10 properties and the fraud yet.

An EOW police officer said the assets would be attached if the team finds that these properties were brought from proceeds of the crime.

Joy Thomas is one of the four people arrested in the Rs 4,355 crore Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative (PMC) bank fraud case.

Thomas was arrested on October 4 in the case and is accused of shielding Housing Development Infrastructure Limited’s (HDIL) loans from the inspections of Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

HDIL accounted for nearly 73% of the bank’s total loan book. Out of the Rs 4,355.46 crore of loans under the scanner, around Rs 2,145.78 crore were transferred to accounts held by the Wadhawans. An account belonging to Rakesh Kumar Wadhawan had a balance of Rs 2,008.62 crore on August 31, 2019, according to the FIR.

Investigators say Joy Thomas had camouflaged HDIL’s 44 bad loan accounts, which had turned into Non Performing Assets (NPA), with nearly 21,000 fictitious accounts.

Of the 10 properties detected by the EOW, Joy Thomas alias Junaid Khan allegedly bought nine flats and a commercial gala in Kondhwa and other parts in Pune

Thomas has four properties in Mumbai and Thane including one in the name of his son from the first wife, who had filed for divorce.

Joy Thomas is in police custody till October 17. He was arrested along with HDILs directors Rakesh Wadhwan, Sarang Wadhwan and former chairman of the bank Waryam Singh. Wadhwans and Singh have been remanded in police custody by the court.