New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has issued a Lookout Circular for Reliance Group chairman Anil Ambani, hours after issuing a summons to Ambani for questioning on 5 August, as part of a probe into alleged loan diversion to the tune of Rs 14,000 crore.
The Lookout Circular opened by the Bureau of Immigration alerts all agencies at exit routes, such as airports, about the ED request to stop Anil Ambani from leaving the country. The businessman has been asked to appear before the agency’s headquarters in New Delhi to record his statement on 5 August.
The development exactly a week after the ED started conducting a massive spell of raids on premises related to him and his firms. The federal agency conducted searches at properties premises linked to 50 companies and 25 individuals associated with the case that lasted for nearly four days.
The money laundering case originated from two cases lodged by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in September 2022 against former Yes Bank managing director Rana Kapoor and two firms controlled by Anil Ambani: Reliance Commercial Finance Limited (RCFL) and Reliance Home Finance Limited (RHFL).
Sources within the agency stated that the investigation conducted so far has indicated the diversion of Rs 3,000 crore worth of loans from Yes Bank between 2017 and 2019, and that these loans were granted after the bank’s promoters received kickbacks.
The Reliance Group, through its erstwhile mutual funds company Reliance Mutual Fund, invested approximately Rs 2,850 crore in AT-1 bonds of Yes Bank, which were later written off, resulting in the complete diversion of the funds by the bank’s promoters, according to ED officials.
This, the ED suspects, was a quid pro quo transaction for sanctioning loans by Yes Bank to other companies within the Reliance Group.
Several other institutions, including the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), the National Housing Bank, the National Financial Reporting Authority, and the Bank of Baroda, have also shared their findings regarding the “misappropriation of loan amounts” by Reliance Anil Ambani Group companies, the ED officials said.
“SEBI flagged a dramatic increase in corporate loans by RHFL, from Rs 3,742.60 crore in the financial year 2017-18 to Rs 8,670.80 crore in FY2018-19, and several illegal practices such as irregular and expedited approvals, deviations from standard process,” one of the ED officials said.
This is an updated version of the report
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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