The Central Bureau of Investigation on Wednesday raided 12 locations in Mumbai after filing a case against Dewan Housing Finance Limited and its former promoters Kapil Wadhawan and Dheeraj Wadhawan for allegedly cheating a consortium of Union Bank of India-led 17 lenders of Rs 34,615 crore, PTI reported.
This is the biggest bank fraud case registered by the agency, officials told the news agency.
In February, the Central Bureau of Investigation had booked Gujarat-based ABG Shipyard, India’s largest private shipbuilding company, and its former managing director Rishi Kamlesh Agarwal, along with others, for allegedly cheating a consortium of 28 banks of Rs 22,842 crore.
The first information report in the new case against the Wadhwans also names Sudhakar Shetty of Amaryllis Realtors and eight other builders.
“In pursuance of the criminal conspiracy, accused Kapil Wadhawan and others induced the consortium banks to sanction huge loans aggregating to Rs 42,871 crore and siphoned off and misappropriated a significant portion of the funds by falsifying the books of the DHFL and dishonestly defaulted on repayment of the legitimate dues of the consortium banks and thereby causing wrongful loss of Rs 34,615 crore to the consortium lenders,” the FIR added, India Today reported.
The Union Bank of India alleged that between 2010 and 2018, Dewan Housing Finance Limited took loans from the consortium under various arrangements and started defaulting on commitments of repayment from May 2019 onwards.
The bank said that accounting watchdog KPMG conducted a special review audit of DHFL from April 1, 2015 to December 31, 2018. The audit, the bank added, found “deviation of laid down norms and procedures, manipulation of accounts, concealments, undisclosed bank accounts and misrepresentation”, according to The Economic Times.
The audit also showed significant financial irregularities and “round tripping of funds” to create assets for Kapil Wadhawan and Dheeraj Wadhawan.
In April, the Enforcement Directorate had alleged Wadhawans laundered money worth Rs 5,050 crore through “suspicious transactions” in a case involving Yes Bank co-founder Rana Kapoor.
The Central Bureau of Investigation had said it took action against them based on a complaint from the bank on February 11 this year.
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