ED attaches Rs 1,452.5-crore assets of Anil Ambani group in fraud case

The Directorate of Enforcement (ED) on Thursday attached multiple buildings in Dhirubhai Ambani Knowledge City (DAKC) and Millenium Business Park, Navi Mumbai as well as plots of land and buildings in Pune, Chennai, and Bhubaneswar, cumulatively worth Rs 1,452.51 crore under the provisions of Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002. It may be recalled that ED had earlier attached properties worth over Rs 7,545 crore in the bank fraud cases of Reliance Communications Ltd. (RCOM), Reliance Commercial Finance Ltd., and Reliance Home Finance Ltd. ED had initiated a probe on the basis of FIR registered by CBI under various Sections of Indian Penal Code, 1860 and Prevention of Corruption Act, 1989 against RCOM, Anil Ambani and others.

RCOM and its group firms availed loans from domestic and foreign lenders from the period of 2010-2012 onwards, of which a total amount of Rs 40,185 crore is outstanding. Nine banks have declared the loan accounts of the group as fraud. ED probe revealed that loans taken by an entity from one bank were reportedly utilised for repayment of loans taken by other entities from other banks, transfer to related parties, and investments in mutual funds, which was in contravention to the terms and conditions of the sanction letter of loans.