Bank loan ‘fraud’: ED attaches Amtek Group’s properties worth Rs 5,115 crore

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has attached properties worth Rs 5,115 crore belonging to promoter of Amtek Group’s Arvind Dham in connection with a Rs 27,000-crore bank loan ‘fraud’.

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The assets attached include 85 immovable properties valued at Rs 2,674.75 crore, spread across 13 states in India. These include large commercial properties and farm houses at prime locations in Delhi, 200 hectares of land in Maharashtra, hundreds of acres of land in Haryana and Punjab, industrial and farm land, residential colonies and flats.

The agency had arrested Dham on July 9 in cases related to Amtek Auto Limited, ARG Limited, ACIL limited, Metalyst Forging Limited and Castex Technologies Limited. Earlier, the ED had initiated investigation on the basis of FIRs registered by the CBI arising from complaints by IDBI Bank and Bank of Maharashtra under various provisions of the IPC and the Prevention of Corruption Act, on allegations of illegally diverting bank loans.

The ED investigation had revealed that the group companies along with other firms were taken to insolvency, whose resolution had led to huge haircut of more than 80 per cent for the banks.

The probe also showed that financial statements of group companies were deceitfully manipulated to obtain additional fraudulent loans and create bogus assets and investments in the books of accounts.

Subsequently, the ED had conducted searches in June which had resulted in unearthing a complex web of more than 500 shell companies deployed or used by the group to hold and invest in high value real estate and luxury properties, whose shareholdings were concealed in a “highly complex shareholding structure”.