Indian Governor Looted $14.5 Billion (57,000 tons) of Food from State’s Starving Poor

Just when you think you have seen it all from corrupt banstkers and politicians who abscond with segregated client funds and the only punishment is the opportunity to start one’s own hedge fund, Bloomberg reports that Indian politician Om Prakash Gupta led a ring that has looted/siphoned $14.5 billion in food from Uttar Pradesh’ s most destitute poor- an astonishing 57,000 tons of food!

Gupta got around the system in Sitapur by using a dummy firm called Naimish Oil Industries Ltd., according to the CBI’s indictment. It paid for subsidized rice, wheat and sugar from the warehouses, picking them up in Gupta-owned trucks, scooters and motorized rickshaws, then sold the food to private companies.

So Gupta literally lined his pockets with $14.5 billion in rice while millions of his fellow destitute Indians LITERALLY starved to death.

While physically stealing 57,000 tons of food meant for the poor is one of the most despicable and unacceptable acts imaginable, in reality the actions by the worlds Central Banks ala the Fed, ECB, and the BOE in debasing the dollar and their respective currencies have caused far more hunger and starvation than Gupta’s $14.5 billion theft of rice.

As much as $14.5 billion in food was looted by corrupt politicians and their criminal syndicates over the past decade in Kishen’s home state of Uttar Pradesh alone, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The theft blunted the country’s only weapon against widespread starvation — a five-decade-old public distribution system that has failed to deliver record harvests to the plates of India’s hungriest.

“This is the most mean-spirited, ruthlessly executed corruption because it hits the poorest and most vulnerable in society,” said Naresh Saxena, who, as a commissioner to the nation’s Supreme Court, monitors hunger-based programs across the country. “What I find even more shocking is the lack of willingness in trying to stop it.”

The CBI’s indictment of Gupta provides a glimpse of how the operation was run. Food purchased by the central government is trucked to districts like Sitapur, where Kishen’s home of Satnapur is located, and stored until marketing managers in the food distribution system sign off on its dispatch to the Fair Price Shops.

The owners of those shops, called kothedars in Hindi, bring cashier’s checks for the subsidized price of the supplies. A kilogram of rice, for instance, costs as little as 2 rupees, or about 3.6 cents, in most states. The market price for similar quality rice is about 10 times higher.

The shop owners are supposed to sell the food to villagers without making a profit.

Gupta got around the system in Sitapur by using a dummy firm called Naimish Oil Industries Ltd., according to the CBI’s indictment. It paid for subsidized rice, wheat and sugar from the warehouses, picking them up in Gupta-owned trucks, scooters and motorized rickshaws, then sold the food to private companies, according to the CBI.

Finally, it looks like India’s version of the CFTC has been conducting the investigation(s):
This scam, like many others involving politicians in India, remains unpunished. A state police force beholden to corrupt lawmakers, an underfunded federal anti-graft agency and a sluggish court system have resulted in five overlapping investigations over seven years — and zero convictions.