Reebok fraud case: Five officials remanded to police custody

A local court on Thursday remanded the five officials of Reebok India, including its sacked MD Subhinder Singh and former COO Vishnu Bhagat, who were arrested here for their alleged involvement in a Rs870-crore fraud in the company, to seven-day police custody.

Judicial Magistrate Sandeep Yadav, after hearing the argument of the public prosecutor Pradeep Gulia that police required ten days to recover documents, laptops and other electronic items in connection with the case, remanded the arrested officials to seven-day police custody.

However, the defence counsels argued that the accused had always been cooperating with the police during the investigation, ever since the FIR was lodged on May 21, 2012 and hence their police custody were not required.

Besides Singh and Bhagat, the three other officials who were arrested in the embezzlement case were Sanjay Mishra, Prashant Bhatnagar and Surakshit Bhatt.

When the alleged scam came to light in March 2012, Singh, who had been made the Managing Director of Adidas India last year as a part of an integration of the businesses of both Adidas and Reebok brands, was dismissed from the company. Bhat's services were terminated too.

The company's financial director, Shahim Padath, later lodged a formal complaint against the duo. The economic cell of Gurgaon police conducted a probe and found that Singh and Bhat had allegedly rented four warehouses without informing their seniors and used them to store goods and claimed they were supplied to genuine dealers.

They also allegedly siphoned off goods to ghost companies and distributors across the country, claiming they were defective pieces. On the complaint of Shahim, an FIR was lodged against them. Singh and Bhat have denied the charges.