Delhi Millionaire Varun Datta held for duping bank of crores

By: Nikhil M.

Imported cars, five- star parties, night clubs, horses, bodyguards and a string of girlfriends – these were the daily accessories of millionaire brat Varun Datta till he was arrested by the Delhi Police this week for duping a bank of several crores of rupees to sustain his lifestyle.

The 23- year- old son of the Capital’s famous liquor baron, Sanjeev Datta, was nabbed by the crime branch for allegedly duping HDFC Bank of  4.2 crore on the pretext of buying imported cars – Lamborghini and Bentley.

Varun, who left studies after completing Class XII from GD Goenka School, never imported these cars. Instead, he spent the money on clubbing, horse riding, polo, travel, parties and on his girlfriends.

He produced fake documents for procuring the loan from the Vasant Vihar branch of the bank and police said bank officials were in awe of him because of his background.

An employee of a reputed direct selling agent ( DSA) of HDFC Bank, Pawan Sharma, and regional sales manager Anuj Bhatia oversaw the processing of the loan documents. Both were tempted by huge commissions offered by Varun.

The accused also obtained VIP registration numbers from the transport authority in Haryana for the cars that were never imported.

The bank, keen to achieve business targets, overlooked the repaying capacity of Varun and disbursed two loans of 1.75 crore and  2.45 crore for the purchase of a Bentley Continental GT Speed and a Lamborghini Gallardo.

Varun has been importing cars for around four years. He has defaulted on several previous loans, which was not investigated by HDFC Bank.

Interestingly, Varun had a natural advantage in his plans as loans procured to import cars are directly sent to the buyer’s account rather than the account of the auto- dealer as happens in normal cases. ” The bank has been able to get back 90 lakh,” a senior official said.