Skyways Air Services Investigates Allegations of Fraud Amid IPO Preparations

New Delhi, February 14 – Skyways Air Services Ltd, a Delhi-based air freight forwarding and logistics company that is preparing for an IPO, is facing an FIR (First Information Report) filed by PG Paper Company Limited, a UK-based company, with the Delhi wing of the Economic Offences Wing (EOW). The alleged "large-scale fraud" involves nine firms/persons, including Skyways Air Services Ltd, and amounts to approximately Rs 480 crore.

According to the FIR filed with the EOW in Delhi, PG Paper Company Limited, through its directors and key managerial personnel, accused Skyways Air Services Ltd and others of offences under the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita, 2023 (BNS), The Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA), and The Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999 (FEMA).

The complaint alleges that the subsidiaries of the Skyways Group, particularly Accused No. 2 and 3 (Brace Port Logistics Ltd and Skyways Airways Ltd), acted through their respective directors and played a central role as the primary beneficiaries of the alleged fraud and misconduct.

PG Paper Company Limited is involved in the international trade and distribution of paper and packaging products and operates through cross-trade shipments. It also engaged RPK Consultants, New Delhi, for back-office support and real-time logistics coordination.

The FIR states that all the accused companies and their directors were introduced to the Complainant Company, PG Paper, by Accused No. 1, Mr. Lokesh Chopra, who was employed through RPK Consultants as a Global Freight Procurement Manager.

On Chopra’s recommendation, these companies were onboarded as freight forwarding vendors.

Chopra, who was entrusted with securing competitive freight rates, instead "breached his fiduciary duty and, in active collusion with the accused companies and their directors, orchestrated a large-scale fraud against PG Paper, causing significant financial losses of approximately Rs 4,80,00,00,000 (Rupees Four Hundred Eighty Crores approx.)," the FIR states.

Skyways Air Services Ltd, which has filed its draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to raise funds through an IPO, stated in a statement to IANS that "the aforementioned FIR did not exist as of the date of the DRHP."

"Accordingly, the details of the same will be included in the Red Herring Prospectus," the company said.

Skyways Air Services Ltd said this "legal matter is pending with the relevant authority."

"Furthermore, the Company is exploring its legal remedies, and the matter is sub judice," the company added.

Skyways Air Services Ltd has already undertaken a Pre-IPO placement of 40,19,326 equity shares with a face value of Rs 10 each at a price of Rs 120 per share, aggregating to Rs 4,823.19 lakhs, on August 6, 2025. The size of the fresh issue will be accordingly reduced, it informed.

According to PG Paper Company Limited, the case allegedly "concerns a deliberate and systematic scheme orchestrated to defraud the Company by Accused No. 1 (Mr. Lokesh Chopra) in connivance with the directors and other key managerial persons of the Accused Companies."

"This scheme involved collusion, fraud, misrepresentation, bribery, embezzlement, anti-competitive practices, and deliberate destruction of evidence," it further alleged.

"These Directors, in connivance with one another and with Accused No. 1, deliberately manipulated shipment bookings, diverted business opportunities, and ensured that the Complainant Company was charged disproportionately higher rates for services that could have been procured at far lower and commercially reasonable costs, resulting in substantial losses to the Complainant Company," the UK-based firm alleged.