ED seizes Rs 415 crores from builders’ assets in biggest bank fraud
- The Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA) has been filed against Chabaria and Bhosale by ED officials.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday attacked assets worth ₹ 415 crores to builder and businessman of ABIL Infrastructure Avinash Bhosale and Sanjay Chhabria of Radius Developers.
Both the businessmen were earlier arrested in the Yes Bank-DHFL (Dewan Housing Finance Limited) case. They had to incur a loss of ₹ 34,000 crores to pay off a group of 17 banks led by the Union Bank of India.
It may be noted that the Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) had last week raided an AgustaWestland helicopter from Bhosale’s property.
On Wednesday, the ED officials said that they had seized a land parcel in Mumbai’s Santacruz worth ₹ 116.5 crores, 25% equity shares of Chhabria’s company held in a land parcel located at Bengaluru worth ₹ 115 crores, another flat in Santacruz worth ₹3 crores, profit from a hotel belonging to Chhabria at Delhi airport worth ₹ 13.67 crores, and three high-end luxury cars of Sanjay Chhabria worth ₹3.10 crores were seized.
In addition to that assets of Bhosale in the form of a duplex flat belonging in Mumbai worth ₹102.8 crores, one land parcel in Pune worth ₹ 14.65 crores, another land parcel in Pune worth ₹ 29.24 crores, a land parcel in Nagpur worth ₹ 15.52 crores and another one located in Nagpur worth at ₹ 1.45 crores were attached by the ED.
The Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA) has been filed against Chabaria and Bhosale by ED officials.
The ED is investigating a case filed in 1998 against Yes Bank co-founder Rana Kapoor and DHFL promoters Kapil Wadhawan and Dheeraj Wadhawan. The complainant alleged that Kapoor along with Kapil Wadhawan provided financial aid to DHFL through Yes Bank in exchange for ‘kickbacks’ to himself and his family members.
ED claims that during its investigations it was revealed that after the transfer of 3,983 crores by Yes Bank to DHFL, DHFL sanctioned a loan of Rs 2,317 crores to the Radius Group of Sanjay Chhabria for developing his project called “Avenue 54”. However, Chhabria diverted the amount without using it for the declared purpose.
Chabaria is accused of conniving Bhosale and diverting the funds to various of the latter’s companies.
“Apart from this, Avinash Bhosale had connived with Kapil Wadhawan of DHFL and received approx Rs 71.82 crore from DHFL in the garb of providing certain services to DHFL and other entities. However, the said so-called services have never been provided and the same was utilized by Bhosale for his beneficial use,” the ED said.
According to ED, articles worth several crores were purchased from diverted funds.
