NMC CFO exits UAE with family and housemaid on repatriation flight to India
UAE: The Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of NMC Health, which is under investigation for a multi-billion financial fraud, exited the UAE on the first repatriation flight from Abu Dhabi meant for distressed Indians, Khaleej Times has learnt.
A source close to the company confirmed that Suresh Krishnamoorthy and his family – including his wife, twin children and elder son and housemaid flew out on board the Air India Express flight to Kochi on May 7.
The ‘great escape’ by Krishnamoorthy and family along with 360-plus Indian expats has raised questions about transparency and fairness while allotting seats to deserving cases in special flights meant for repatriation. Khaleej Times is awaiting comments from the embassy.
“He sent me a message on Friday morning (the day after the first flight) from Kerala saying he left due to some urgent matters. He said will be back in the UAE in June. He has definitely left the UAE with his whole family,” said the company source.
“He would have escaped for sheer fright that the rot has gone too deep and the long hands of law will reach him sooner or later,” said the source.
The family is currently in their house in Alappuzha, Kerala, and while the elder son is in government quarantine.
Earlier, the Indian ambassador to the UAE Pavan Kapoor told Khaleej Times that the list of passengers is prepared by the embassy on a priority basis, and is handed over to Air India.
The list, a copy of which KT has seen, shows that Krishnamoorthy was on seat 16B, while his family members were allotted other adjacent seats. The tickets were booked under PNR number DDUBEV.
The repatriation flights were launched by the government of India on May 7 as part of a mammoth ‘Vande Baharath Mission’ to bring back stranded Indians. More than 200,000 people from the UAE have registered with the Indian embassy and Indian consulate requesting repatriation on urgent grounds. Terminally ill, jobless, pregnant, and those grieving the death of their own family members are among the expats desperately waiting for their chance to fly home.
False affidavit
While how six members of a family wiggled their way out on a special flight remains a mystery, sources alleged Krishnamoorthy may have furnished a false affidavit to the embassy claiming a death in the family to secure seats.
Sources close to Krishnamoorthy told Khaleej Times that his father is terminally ill with cancer while his mother died in 2018.
“There was no recent death in the family that we know of. Maybe there is a genuine reason that his father is unwell,” said the source.
Not under investigation
According to the source, Krishnamoorthy stepped down as the CFO in 2017 when Prasanth Manghat took over as the NMC CEO.
“He had cited health reasons and his father’s illness to step down, and was given a lighter portfolio of managing acquired assets which required less frequent travel,” said the source.
According to him, Krishnamoorthy was reinstated in February 2020 after the organization’s top tier management exited the country en masse following the disclosure of $4 billion of undeclared debt, landing the Abu-Dhabi-based company into one of the biggest scandals to rock an FTSE 100 entity.
“All top 25 top NMC bosses left the UAE overnight in February. The parent company was left with no one who had the know-how and we requested Krishnamoorthy to return and take up the mantle again,” said a senior company source.
“He was not in the picture when all of this was unfolding. He is not under investigation in the UAE. There are no criminal charges against him either. But I suspect that he may have worried that investigating authorities will dig deeper into 2017 or 2016 files when he was in charge.”
A piddly credit card loan not paid up on time can get you banged up in UAE and to say the person at the heart of $4 billion fraud is allowed to walk past the UAE emigration tells you there are far powerful people involved in this scam. This scam goes back by at least 10 years and to say this guy was CFO only until 2017 as a a convenient excuse tells you this is all a hog wash. He was assisted by the local towel heads who are part of this scam. The new NMC board (i.e. the… Read more »
Another bombshell – It has come to light the main accused in NMC scandal is about to default on Rs. 2000 crore loan from Bank of Baroda/Vijaya bank. Pledge/collateral was his Indian real estate. Now he can’t give “fraudulent signatures by rogue employees” excuse, can he? He is in all likelihood going to end up on the streets. Hopefully he has a non-pledged house which is transferred to his kin so he can spend his remaining years in dignity. And he can’t run away to London either because the UK police will welcome him with open arms. As regards the… Read more »
Talking about this 2000 crore loan, as I said, the collateral is his various real estate assets in India but I am fairly confident the valuation of those assets was when the real estate was at its peak and it was bogus. Now with the oncoming, assured recession the real estate is going to collapse and may come to 25% of its market peak value. So 2000 crore Bank of Baroda collateral might only be worth 500 crore when its auctioned. So Bank of Baroda is going to have to take a massive hit on their balance sheet. The news… Read more »