The Enforcement Directorate has arrested former Reliance Communications (RCOM) president Punit Garg on money laundering charges in connection with its ongoing probe into the alleged ₹40,000-crore bank loan fraud involving the group companies of industrialist Anil Ambani.
Garg was taken into custody on Thursday and a Delhi court sent him to nine days’ ED custody, the agency said in a statement on Friday.
On Wednesday, the agency had attached fresh assets worth ₹1,885 crore of the Reliance Anil Ambani Group, taking the cumulative attachment of properties belonging to the industrialist in the ongoing probe to ₹12,000 crore.
Garg served as RCOM president (global enterprise business) from 2006 to 2013 and then president (regulatory affairs) from 2014 to 2017. In October 2017, he was appointed executive director of RCOM and from April 2019 to April 2025, he served as non-executive director, the ED said.
The probe revealed that Garg was actively involved in the acquisition, possession, concealment, layering and dissipation of proceeds of crime generated from the bank fraud, the ED said.
Wingo blocked
The Centre has blocked the Wingo app for allegedly sending fraudulent messages from users’ phones, using them as mules to carry out large-scale message-based cybercrimes, officials said on Friday.
The action was taken by the Union home ministry and its anti-cybercrime agency, the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), after they received numerous complaints against the Android application.