Sovereign Bank and CIT Financial have implicated Dinesh Dalmia, also sought by the Interpol seeking repayment of loans to a North Brunswick, N.J. outsourcing company called Allserve Systems Corp.
JERSEY FRAUD
By CHRISTOPHER BYRON
Major U.S. companies are in federal bankruptcy court demanding they get back $83 million they loaned to a New Jersey outfit they claim is linked to an international fugitive financier.
Dinesh Dalmia, who is being sought by Interpol, has been implicated by Sovereign Bank and CIT Financial, among others, seeking repayment of loans to a North Brunswick, N.J. outsourcing company called Allserve Systems Corp.
In a Newark courtroom Wednesday, the creditors told Judge Rosemary Gambardella that they weren't buying Allserve's explanation of two disasters hitting call centers in India within months of each other.
As The Post has reported, Dalmia's activities have ranged from a failed effort to sell a germ warfare facility to the Iraqi government following the attacks of Sept. 11, to his alleged use of identity-hiding offshore shell company accounts in the British Virgin Islands to sequester millions looted from a publicly traded company, DSQ Software Ltd.
Interpol has issued a so-called Red Notice for Dalmia who is also wanted for securities fraud in his native India.
Allserve, which filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 18, said its business was, in effect, swallowed by a sink-hole that opened under its offices in the city of Chennai, India, last March.
After that, the company said, its Chennai operation was relocated to other offices in the city. But, the company claimed, the new location was gutted in a fire six weeks ago, which permanently knocked it out of business.
The creditors contended that Allserve's efforts to get bankruptcy protection appeared to be part of a pattern of fraud that may involve Dalmia as well.
The company, according to the creditors, has refused to identify its top officials, or explain where most of its computers are now located.
They also said it won't explain what happened to more than $35 million of cash that appears to have vanished from Allserve's accounts between July and October.
Federal law requires companies to provide a breakdown of their revenues for the full year prior to filing for bankruptcy.
But it is impossible to tell from the documents that Allserve submitted whether its accounting for revenues covers "Year to Date," or "Current Month," or the seven-month period between the sink-hole event and the fire, since the accounting is described as covering all three time frames simultaneously, the documents show.
A separate exhibit in the case file, for Allserve's general ledger, shows that between August and October of this year, when Allserve's financial noose was supposedly tightening, the company nonetheless wired all of its gross revenue for the period — more than $11 million — to two affiliated companies in India.
Both affiliates share common addresses in Chennai, where they had supposedly set up operations after the sink-hole had swallowed Allserve's offices.
But documents from a variety of Indian Web sites show the two operations had actually been located at the latter address for years.
Other creditors include the Bostonia Investment Group, Qwest Communications, GATX Technologies Services and Republic Bank.
.jpg "MoneyLife")
