ED raids 35 places in Delhi-NCR, Maharashtra against Amtek group in bank fraud case

New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday conducted searches at 35 places in Delhi-NCR and Maharashtra against Amtek Group in connection with a bank fraud case of more than Rs 20,000 crores in several listed companies which were finally taken over in NCLT proceeding at nominal price leaving consortium of banks with nominal recovery.
ED's Zonal office in Gurugram is conducting these raids across Delhi, Gurugram, Noida, Mumbai and Nagpur under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) on Amtek Group led by Arvind Dham, Gautam Malhotra and others.
The alleged fraud led to huge loss to exchequer money of approximately Rs 10-15k crores, said the ED.
The ED investigation started based on the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) First Information Report (FIR) in one of the group entities ACIL Limited and as per Supreme Court directions to investigate the fraud.
Further, ED said its investigation revealed that loan funds were siphoned off to invest in real estate, foreign investment and investment in new ventures.
As per the agency, fictitious sales, capital assets, debtors and profit were shown in group concerns to get more loans so that it does not get NPA.
"It is alleged that listed companies' shares were rigged. A thousand crores of assets have been parked in shell companies' names. Some foreign assets have been created and money is still parked under the new names," said the ED.