An organised group of fraudsters in India purported to use letters of credit (L/Cs) to obtain preferential-rate loans for potential victims, according to Indian media reports.

The reports allege that at least four members of one family operating out of central India's largest city, Nagpur, are behind a series of related frauds.

Loan promise

The latest complaint against Sachin Pandey, Jaykumar Dixit, Dr Swarneem and Piyush Parashar has been lodged by a Mumbai-based builder.

Shivkumar Acharya alleges that the family from Nagpur fraudulently obtained the equivalent of more than US$700,000 from him.

The claimant alleges that this was the cash-up-front payment he was persuaded to make because he thought he it would secure him a loan equivalent to around US$3.5 million at preferential rates.

Other cases

In similar cases, the alleged fraudsters are said to have claimed to have issued standby L/Cs to foreign financial institutions in order to secure low cost loans from them.

But the loans did not materialise in at least two other cases of alleged fraud related to the same family, in which one would-be borrower was duped out of the equivalent of around

US$350,000 while the other lost around US$200,000 to the alleged fraudsters.

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