New Delhi, Nov 3 (IANS) The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has provisionally attached over 132 acres of land worth Rs 4,462.81 crore in Dhirubhai Ambani Knowledge City at Navi Mumbai in Maharashtra, under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, according to a statement issued by the investigative agency on Monday.

ED had earlier attached 42 properties worth over Rs 3,083 crore in the bank fraud cases of Reliance Communications Ltd (RCOM), Reliance Commercial Finance Ltd, and Reliance Home Finance Ltd.

“The total attachment in these cases stands at over Rs 7,545 crores. ED is actively pursuing perpetrators of financial crime and is committed to restituting the proceeds of crime to their rightful claimants,” the statement said.

ED had initiated an investigation based on CBI’s FIR under sections 120-B, 406 and 420 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 and section 13(2) read with section 13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1989, against RCOM, Anil Ambani, and others.

RCOM and its group companies 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. Five banks have declared the loan accounts of the Group as fraud, the statement said.

The ED investigation has revealed that loans taken by one entity from one bank were 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 of the terms and conditions of the sanction letter of the loans, the statement explained.

In particular, RCOM and its group companies diverted over Rs 13,600 crore for evergreening of loans; over Rs 12,600 crore was diverted to connected parties and over Rs 1,800 crore was invested in FDs/MFs, etc, which was substantially liquidated for rerouting to group entities. Huge misuse of bill discounting for the purpose of funnelling funds to connected parties has also been detected by ED. Certain loans were siphoned off outside India through foreign outward remittances. Further investigation is in progress, the statement added.

–IANS

sps/uk