LOS ANGELES, May 16: Four New Jersey-based Indian nationals were charged on Tuesday with defrauding banks of more than 600 million dollars through an ‘international scheme’ to secure loans for illusory metal-trading deals, federal authorities said.

Prosecutors said the men presented themselves to banks as metals’ brokers, and created illusory front companies, so-called recruits around the world and fake documents to procure loans.

They successfully deluded the banks that financed their ‘deals’ for at least two years, the prosecutors said.

The defendants are: Narenda Kumar Rastogi (47), Anil Anand (39), Manoj Nijhawan (43), and Udhay Shankar Balakrishna (27).

According to the indictment, Rastogi, an Indian national, was chief executive of Allied Deals, Hampton Lane and SAI Commodity, metal-trading firms based in New Jersey through which the fraud was run.

RBG Resources, a firm based in London owned by Rastogi’s brother, Virenda Rastogi, was also involved in the scam, prosecutors said.

Virenda Rastogi, who is listed as the 10th richest Asian on the Asian Rich List, was arrested earlier this month in London in connection with the collapse of RBG.

According to the indictment on Wednesday, he was arrested while trying to shred documents.

Prosecutors became aware of the scope of the fraud in the United States only a few days ago, though some banks had become suspicious and began auditing the companies’ deals as early as last fall.

According to the indictment, the plan broke down late last year, when some of the banks discovered that all the defendants’ customers stopped making loan payments simultaneously. When they asked about the due payments, they were given several explanations, including a feud with a rival family in India, the arrest of one of Rastogi’s brothers in India and the Sept 11 terrorist attacks, prosecutors said.