Cobrapost a famous sting website has  taken Indian Banking Industry into storms when it revealed how three of India’s topmost Private Banks (HDFC, ICICI and Axis Bank) help with Money Laundering  and Black Money.
In a Press Conference, Aniruddha Bahal, Founder of Cobrapost revealed that Journalists  of Cobrapost pretending to be agents of Politicians, Bureaucrats and top Business Persons met officers of these banks and got support assurance along with key methods how these Banks are helping in Money Laundering.  The brazen criminal activity by these banks is channelizing vast amounts of black money into the regular banking system as laundered white money.
It also showed how Banks and their managements systematically and deliberately violating several provisions of the Income Tax Act, FEMA, RBI regulations, KYC norms, the Banking Act and Prevention of Money laundering Act (PMLA) with utter disregard to consequences, driven by their desire to boost cheap deposits and thereby increasing their profits.
In one  video excerpt, an HDFC Bank official  was explaining to an undercover reporter for Cobrapost  different methods to launder money.
Taking an alias of Rajeev Sharma, one journalist visited dozens and dozens of branches of these banks across the length and breadth of the country, including many major cities and state capitals, across all five zones. Nowhere was he disappointed. Nowhere was he turned away. Almost every banker that he came across was willing to help launder the black money of the fictitious politician, the journalist was supposedly working for.
Briefly speaking, how these banks launder black money.  Below we enlist the modus operandi that is tailored to rake in vast amounts of black money in the form of illegal deposits, insurance and investment products, sold by these banks. All these creative means make the dirty money squeaky clean without the regulatory authorities ever getting a whiff of what they are doing.
- Accept huge amounts of cash and invest it in insurance products and gold.
- Open an account to route the cash into various investment schemes of the bank.
- Do it even without the mandatory PAN card or adhering to the KYC norms laid down by RBI.
- Â Split the money into tranches to get it into the banking system without being detected.
- Use “benami†accounts to facilitate the conversion of black money.
- Use accounts of other customers to channelize the black money into the system for a fee.Â
- Get demand drafts made for the client either from their own banks or from other banks to facilitate investment without it showing up in the client’s account.
- Keep the identity of the investor/depositor secret.
- Open multiple accounts and close them at will to facilitate the investment of black money.
- Invest black money in multiple instruments in the names of different individuals, not necessarily drawn from among the family.
- Allot lockers for the safekeeping of the illegitimate cash, including special large size lockers to accommodate crores of hard cash.Â
- Personally come to the residence of the client to take the black money deal forward and collect the cash, even bring along counting machine.
- Use provisions like Form 60 to deposit the illegitimate cash into the account to route it into investment.
- Help the client to transfer black money abroad through NRE (Non-Resident External)/NRO (Non-Resident Ordinary) account; transfer the money telegraphically or through means other than regular banking procedures.