The Enforcement Directorate has attached assets worth ₹77.65 crore in a bank fraud case allegedly involving the promoters of the Housing Development Infrastructures Limited (HDIL), taking the value of the attachment so far to ₹147.49 crore.
The assets, including five commercial properties spread across 32,300 sq. ft. and two residential flats in Mumbai, belong to Sunlight Housing Development Private Limited (SHDPL) and its directors.
The ED probe is based on an FIR registered by the CBI alleging that ₹200 crore sanctioned by the Yes Bank to one Mack Star Marketing Private Limited was siphoned off. The case involves HDIL promoters, Rakesh Wadhawan and his son, Sarang. Among the other accused is former PMC Bank chairman Waryam Singh.
The agency said the attached commercial properties were earlier owned by Mack Star and they were fraudulently transferred to one Mukesh Doshi through his company SHDPL, at a “wrongful loss” of ₹77.65 crore, without making any payment. The consent of Mack Star’s majority shareholder, DE Shaw Group, was also not taken for the purpose.
To evade detection, the HDIL — in connivance with the SHDPL — made 223 transactions amounting to ₹994 crore with each other’s associate companies on a single day, in such a manner as to project that money had been paid for acquiring the properties. The funds were round-tripped and eventually, the properties got transferred to the SHDPL free of cost, as alleged.
The ED had already initiated a separate money-laundering probe against the HDIL, the Wadhawans, Joy Thomas, then chairman-cum-managing director of the PMC Bank and others, on the basis of an FIR instituted by the Mumbai police’s Economic Offences Wing. In that case, properties worth ₹366.30 crore have been attached and assets valued ₹63.78 crore seized.
