Director of India’s East-West Airlines jailed for '90s fraud

A director of the now defunct East-West Airlines (India) was sentenced to twelve months imprisonment last week for a fraudulent1990s fuel deal. Faisal Wahid was the airline's director of marketing and operations and faced Mumbai's Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) criminal court on December 20, 2022. East-West Airlines (not to be confused with the also now defunct Australian carrier of the same name - East-West Airlines (Australia) - or start-up East West Airlines (Syrian Arab Republic) in Syria) commenced domestic air passenger operations in 1992, only to fold in 1996. The airline gained a degree of notoriety after its managing director, Thakiyudeen Wahid, was murdered by gunmen near East-West's Mumbai office in 1995. Twenty-six years after the airline's demise, the CBI Court found Faisal and a Vijaya Bank official guilty of defrauding the Indian Oil Corporation Ltd of INR17.3m rupees (USD209,432) using fraudulent drafts of demand. The racket involved faxing copies of the demand drafts to the oil company, which then provided the fuel. East-West then cancelled the order and never provided the oil company with the original demand draft, per the proper process. According to the court, this occurred five times with the cooperation of a bank official, Jayanand Shetty, who did not debit the fuel cost from the airline's accounts.<br/>