CFO of NMC Health, a company under probe for multi-billion fraud

The chief financial officer (CFO) of NMC Health, which is under investigation for an alleged multi-billion financial fraud, has exited the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on board a repatriation flight from Abu Dhabi, Khaleej Times has reported. The flight was meant for distressed Indians stranded in the UAE due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Suresh Krishnamoorthy - along with his wife, children and a housemaid - left on board an Air India Express flight to Kochi, Kerala on May 7.

The newspaper quotes an unnamed company source as saying: "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".

"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," the person added.

Moneycontrol could not independently verify the report.

The report cites people alleging that Krishnamoorthy may have furnished a false affidavit to the Indian embassy claiming a death in the family to secure seats.

However, the report also cites a person close to the family saying that his father is terminally ill with cancer.

While Krishnamoorthy had eportedly stepped down as the CFO in 2017 when Prasanth Manghat took over as the NMC CEO, he was reinstated in February after the company’s management exited the UAE en masse following the disclosure of $4 billion of undeclared debt.

"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," the newspaper has quoted a company source as saying.