New Delhi: Ashok Kumar Pal, a top aide of Reliance Group chairman Anil Ambani, was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Saturday in connection with money laundering charges linked to alleged bank loan frauds worth Rs 17,000 crore.
Pal, a chartered accountant, has been working as the Chief Financial Officer at Reliance Power Limited for over seven years. He was taken into custody by the ED under provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), NDTV has reported.
The case pertains to alleged financial irregularities and a collective loan “diversion” pegged at more than Rs 17,000 crore by Anil Ambani’s multiple group companies, including Reliance Infrastructure (R Infra).
The first allegation concerns the “illegal” loan diversion of around Rs 3,000 crore. This loan was granted by Yes Bank between 2017 and 2019. The second allegation is about a similar fraud involving over Rs 14,000 crore, allegedly committed by Reliance Communications (R-Com).
It has been alleged that money was diverted to companies with poor or unverified financial sources. The use of common directors and addresses, a lack of essential documentation, the routing of funds to shell entities, and instances of ‘loan evergreening’ also came up during investigations. Some loans were allegedly approved and released on the same day the application was made, while others were transferred even before ‘approval’.
Based on these allegations, the ED launched raids in July this year as part of the alleged bank loan fraud-linked money laundering case, apart from multiple other allegations of financial irregularities with crores of rupees by certain companies.
In August, Partha Sarathi Biswal, the managing director of Biswal Tradelink Pvt Ltd, became the first person to be arrested in this case. He was charged with submitting fake guarantees worth Rs 68.2 crore. These guarantees were allegedly arranged on behalf of Reliance Power.
Anil Ambani had also been questioned by the ED regarding details from 12 to 13 banks about the due diligence procedures conducted when loans were granted to Reliance Housing Finance, Reliance Communications, and Reliance Commercial Finance.
