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Mumbai, Oct 10 (IANS) The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday said it has attached a bungalow of a promotor of Housing Development and Infrastructure Ltd (HDIL) in connection with the Rs 4,355 crore Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative (PMC) Bank fraud case.
Spread over 5 acre, the Diwan Bungalow located in Dev Talao area in Vasai (West) in Maharashtra's Palghar district, part of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, said the ED.
Last week, the ED had attached a private jet and jewellery worth Rs 60 crore of HDIL Chairman Rakesh Wadhawan and his son Sarang Wadhawan -- both in Mumbai Police custody.
The agency also claimed that it is in touch with authorities in the Maldives to attach Wadhawan's yacht which is anchored there. The ED has also frozen the bank accounts of Waryam Singh, former Chairman of PMC Bank, including deposits/fixed deposits of around Rs 10 crore.
Taking cognizance of the FIR filed into the matter by Mumbai Police's Economic Offences Wing (EOW), the ED had filed a money laundering case against HDIL promoters in the PMC Bank fraud case.
The ED had earlier carried out raids at multiple locations in Mumbai, including the head office of HDIL in Bandra (East) and the residence of Rakesh Wadhawan which is known as Wadhawan House in Bandra (West). The agency also raided the premises of Waryam Singh and former PMC Bank Managing Director Joy Thomas.
The ED has also found that HDIL was one of the sponsors of Kolkata Knight Riders, the IPL team co-owned by Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan. HDIL was also the organiser of a Mumbai fashion event -- HDIL Couture Week India, which was latter shelved.
HDIL also had stake in Adhikari Brothers' firms and Hindi news channel Live India.
The ED has said that it is also looking into the roles of seven directors of HDIL, including the Wadhawans. Both were arrested on October 3 by the Mumbai Police after they were found not cooperating with the sleuths.
It is also looking for the details of 18 other companies linked to HDIL. Sources said the companies are Wadhawan Livestock Private Ltd, Privilege Industries Ltd, UM Architechtures and Contractors Ltd, Guruashish Construction Private Ltd, Heritage Housing Development (India ) Private Ltd, HR Infracity Private Ltd, Libra Hotels Private Ltd, Privilege Airways Private Ltd and ANC Holdings and Investment Private Ltd.
The other connected companies are Privilege Power and Infrastructure Private Ltd, HC Infracity Private Ltd, Dreams The Mall Company Ltd, The Mall Malad Management Company Ltd, Dewan Realtors Private Ltd, Libra Realtors Private Ltd, HDIL Harmony Mall Company Ltd and Privilege Health Care Services Private Ltd.
It is alleged that HDIL, which is facing bankruptcy proceedings, and its group companies had taken huge loans from the PMC Bank. As many as 21,049 fictitious bank accounts were allegedly created to hide the loans, which were disbursed in violation of RBI norms.
It has also been alleged that HDIL accounted for nearly 73 per cent of the bank's total loans. Out of the Rs 4,355 crore loans under the scanner, around Rs 2,146 crore were transferred to accounts held by the Wadhawans. An account belonging to the Wadhawans had a balance of Rs 2,009 crore on August 31, 2019, according to the FIR.
During the probe by the Reserve Bank of India, it has been found that directors of PMC Bank had replaced 44 suspicious loan accounts with 20,149 fictitious bank accounts with low individual balances by tampering with bank software. The PMC Bank's former Managing Director Joy Thomas was allegedly behind the masking of the borrowers' accounts.
--IANS
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