Bank fraud: ED attaches Amtek Group’s assets worth over Rs 5,000 cr

New Delhi, Sep 7 (PTI) Farm houses, hundreds of acres of agricultural and industrial lands across states and shares and debentures worth more than Rs 5,000 crore have been attached under the anti-money laundering law in an alleged bank loan fraud case against an insolvent automotive equipment manufacturing company, the ED said Saturday.

The action comes after the federal agency arrested Amtek Group promoter Arvind Dham in July. The company is under liquidation.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) booked a case against the company and its promoters under various sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), taking cognisance of a CBI FIR and a direction issued to it by the Supreme Court in February to probe the case.

The IDBI Bank and the Bank of Maharashtra had filed a CBI complaint against the accused for “illegally diverting” bank loans and causing loss to these lenders, the ED said in a statement. The bank “fraud” is estimated to be about Rs 27,000 crore.

Companies of the group like Amtek Auto Limited, ARG Limited, ACIL limited, Metalyst Forging Limited and Castex Technologies Limited along with other concerns were taken to insolvency, whose resolution had led to “huge haircut” of more than 80 per cent for the banks causing “substantial” losses to these public sector banks, it claimed.

Probe found that the financial statements of the group companies were “deceitfully manipulated” to obtain additional fraudulent loans and create bogus assets and investments in the books of accounts, the ED said.

The agency had undertaken searches in this case in June that led to the unearthing of a complex web of more than 500 shell companies deployed or used by the group to hold and invest in high value real estate and luxury properties, whose shareholdings were concealed in a “highly complex shareholding structure”, it said.

“These shell companies were holding assets, whose beneficial ownership has been revealed to be with Arvind Dham, the main promoter and beneficial owner of the Amtek group of companies and he was was found to be alienating or transferring these assets,” it said.

The assets attached as part of a provisional order issued under the PMLA include 85 immovable properties valued at Rs 2,674.75 crore, spread across 13 different states in India.

These include “large” commercial properties and farm houses at prime locations in Delhi, 200 hectares of land in Maharashtra, hundreds of acres of land in Haryana and Punjab, including in Gurugram, Chandigarh, Rewari and Panchkula, industrial lands, agricultural lands, residential plotted colonies, flats etc, it said.

The attached assets also also include movable assets, including shares worth Rs 2,353.46 crore in both listed and unlisted companies like Alliance Integrated Metaliks Limited, Newtime Infrastructure Limited, Rollatainers Limited, Adhbhut Infrastructure Limited, Gourmet Gateway Limited, Barista Coffee Company Limited, and B S Ispat Limited, as per the ED.

Debentures worth Rs 87.10 crore have been attached, the agency said, adding that the total value of all these properties under attachment is Rs 5,115.31 crore.