The Enforcement Directorate on Monday attached nearly 132 acres of land within the Dhirubhai Ambani Knowledge City in Navi Mumbai linked to Anil Ambani, valued at ₹4,500 crore, taking the total value of assets attached in connection with the industrialist’s alleged loan frauds to over ₹7,500 crore, sources said.
Earlier, the ED had attached 40 properties worth about ₹3,084 crore in connection with the case against the industrialist and his group companies.
Sources said among the properties attached include Anil Ambani’s house in Mumbai’s Pali Hill, the Reliance Centre property in Delhi, and other properties across Delhi, Noida, Ghaziabad, Mumbai, Pune, Thane, Hyderabad, Chennai and East Godavari, besides 132 acres of land within the Dhirubhai Ambani Knowledge City (DAKC) in Navi Mumbai.
“The total attachment in these cases stands at over ₹7,545 crore. The ED is actively pursuing perpetrators of financial crime and is committed to restituting proceeds of crime to their rightful claimants,” said an ED official.
These attachments, he said, have been made following orders issued on October 31 under Section 5(1) of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
On Monday, Reliance Infrastructure Ltd issued a statement saying that certain assets of the company had been provisionally attached by the ED for alleged violations under the PMLA.
“We wish to inform that certain assets of the company have been provisionally attached by ED for the alleged violations under PMLA. There is no impact on the business operations, shareholders, employees or any other stakeholders of Reliance Infrastructure Limited. Anil D. Ambani is not on the Board of Reliance Infrastructure Limited for more than 3.5 years,” the company said in its statement.
Sources in Reliance Infrastructure Ltd said the Reliance Centre in Delhi (RCD) and DAKC in Navi Mumbai “are assets of Reliance Communications Ltd (RCom)”.
“The company has been undergoing the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process for more than six years. Matters pertaining to the resolution of RCom are currently sub judice before the National Company Law Tribunal and the Supreme Court. Anil
Ambani served as a non-executive director on the board of RCom and resigned from
this position in 2019,” a source said.
Sources in the ED said the agency was tracing proceeds of crime and securing attachments of property as part of the ongoing probe. An agency official said the attachments were mainly related to Reliance Home Finance Limited (RHFL) and Reliance Commercial Finance Ltd (RCFL).
“During 2017-2019, Yes Bank invested ₹2,965 crore in RHFL instruments and ₹2,045 crore in RCFL instruments. These turned into non‑performing investments by December 2019, with ₹1,353.5 crore then outstanding for RHFL and ₹1,984 crore for RCFL,” the ED official said.
The investigation has revealed that loans taken by one entity from one bank were utilised to repay loans taken by other entities from other banks, transferred to related parties, and invested in mutual funds, which was in contravention of the terms and conditions of the sanction letter of the loans, the sources said.
“...Huge misuse of bill discounting to funnel funds to connected parties has also been detected by the ED. Certain loans were siphoned off outside India through foreign outward remittances,” an agency source said.