By Kavita Iyer 
New York, November 1: For years, Bankim Brahmbhatt looked like another Indian-origin success story in America’s crowded tech-telecom world, a self-made executive running companies that promised to connect continents through voice and data. Today, he’s the man at the centre of what BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, calls a “breathtaking” US$500 million fraud.
The case has the scale of a Wall Street thriller: fake invoices, phantom customers, and missing executives. But beyond the drama, it exposes something more unsettling that even a financial giant built on data and diligence can get blindsided by old-fashioned deceit.
The Telecom Executive Who Fooled the World’s Biggest Asset Manager
In the 2010s, Brahmbhatt’s companies Broadband Telecom and Bridgevoice styled themselves as high-volume global voice carriers, quietly moving traffic between Africa, South Asia, and the US. His LinkedIn profile painted a picture of a globe-trotting dealmaker, the kind who thrives in the margins of the telecom business.
Then came the money. Around September 2020, HPS Investment Partners, then an independent private-credit fund, began lending to one of Brahmbhatt’s affiliates, according to The Economic Times. HPS was acquired by BlackRock in early 2025, part of the firm’s aggressive push into the booming world of private credit.
At first, it seemed like a standard high-yield bet: loans secured by “accounts receivable,” essentially, invoices and payments owed by telecom clients. But as the months passed, the exposure swelled to over US$430 million by 2024, LiveMint reported.
What no one realised was that many of those invoices may have been works of fiction.
How It Came Apart
The house of cards started wobbling in July 2025. According to Business Today, an HPS analyst stumbled on something odd: email addresses from supposed telecom clients didn’t trace back to real companies. They were cleverly faked lookalike domains created to mimic genuine customers.
That discovery cracked open a trail of fabricated paperwork. NDTV and Moneycontrol later reported that Brahmbhatt’s companies allegedly forged entire client rosters and invoice chains, using them as collateral to draw more credit. Millions flowed in.
Some of the money, investigators now claim, was quietly routed offshore into accounts in India and Mauritius, according to Hindustan Times.
By August 12, 2025, the façade collapsed. Both Broadband Telecom and Bridgevoice filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the United States. On the same day, Brahmbhatt himself sought personal bankruptcy protection, India Today confirmed.
Then he vanished.
The Vanishing Act
When lenders called, there was silence. Emails bounced. Staff went dark. A few days later, The Times of India reported that Brahmbhatt had stopped responding entirely no public appearances, no known travel logs, nothing.
People who worked with him describe him as meticulous, polite, and oddly private. “He never said much about his background or who funded him,” one former associate told an Indian business daily.
His lawyer, however, insists his client is being misrepresented. As Hindustan Times reported, the attorney has rejected the allegations, calling them “unsubstantiated and exaggerated.”
Still, the paperwork tells a different story and it’s now in the hands of US courts.
A Blow to BlackRock’s Risk Aura
For BlackRock, this is more than just an embarrassing loss. The firm, which manages over US$10 trillion, built its reputation on ironclad risk controls and analytical precision. But private credit is a different beast, faster, looser, and often reliant on the borrower’s honesty.
Business Insider pointed out that the firm’s HPS unit had become a star performer, outpacing traditional ETF and bond businesses. The Brahmbhatt case now threatens to chill that momentum.
Analysts told Illuminem the scandal could force a reckoning in how lenders verify “collateralised receivables,” a market shorthand for loans backed by invoices. “You can’t just trust PDFs and spreadsheets anymore,” one expert said. “Someone’s got to pick up the phone and check if those customers exist.”
Familiar Shadows: The Greensill Echo
To those who remember Greensill Capital’s implosion in 2021, this feels painfully familiar. That collapse, too, revolved around made-up invoices and exaggerated receivables. Brahmbhatt’s alleged playbook looks like a remix of the same script, just updated for the telecom world.
The difference is who got burned. Back then, it was Credit Suisse. This time, it’s BlackRock, the global poster child for financial discipline.
Private credit, now worth more than US$1.7 trillion worldwide, has exploded as banks pulled back from lending. The problem is that it’s largely unregulated, operating in a twilight zone between shadow banking and venture finance.
That freedom brings yield. It also brings risk.
Fallout and Unanswered Questions
The lawsuit filed in August accuses Brahmbhatt and his companies of outright fraud, claiming losses of over US$500 million. The plaintiffs, including HPS and other lenders, are now trying to trace assets across jurisdictions. Some recovery may come through insurance or bankruptcy proceedings, but few expect to get much back.
Meanwhile, US and Indian authorities haven’t yet confirmed any formal criminal investigations. Whether Interpol or other agencies will get involved depends on where Brahmbhatt is, a detail no one seems sure of.
Insiders told The Economic Times that lenders are still piecing together what really happened during the years when the loans were being renewed and expanded. “There were quarterly calls, audits, financials and yet, nobody saw the cracks,” one source said.
The Indian Angle And The Cautionary Tale
Back in India, the case has sparked a mix of fascination and discomfort. Media coverage has focused heavily on the “Indian-origin CEO” tag, a label that feels both unavoidable and unfair.
“Nationality didn’t defraud anyone. Lax oversight did,” one compliance expert told LiveMint. Still, the optics sting. For a country that proudly counts Satya Nadella, Sundar Pichai, and dozens of other Indian-origin executives at the top of global firms, scandals like this risk feeding easy stereotypes.
It’s also a reminder that cross-border corporate regulation still lags far behind the speed of global money. When funds move through Mauritius shell entities or U.S.-based credit vehicles, jurisdiction becomes a maze.
A Market on Edge
The mood in the private credit world is nervous. Across New York and London, risk officers are quietly running checks on their own books. Firms are calling auditors, demanding deeper verifications.
As one fund manager told Business Insider, “If BlackRock can get hit, what chance do the rest of us have?”
The answer may lie not in more technology, but in slowing down, checking paperwork the old-fashioned way, demanding proof of life behind every invoice.
For now, BlackRock faces the fallout. The lawsuits will grind on. The markets will move past the headlines. But the story of Bankim Brahmbhatt, the telecom executive who allegedly fooled the world’s biggest asset manager, will linger as a lesson in hubris, oversight, and how trust, once lost, can take a fortune with it.
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Former financial consultant turned journalist, reporting on markets, industry trends, and economic policy.
- Kavita Iyerhttps://hindustanherald.in/author/kavita/
- Kavita Iyerhttps://hindustanherald.in/author/kavita/
- Kavita Iyerhttps://hindustanherald.in/author/kavita/
- Kavita Iyerhttps://hindustanherald.in/author/kavita/
Ananya Sharma