Bank fraud: ED attaches Rs 678 cr worth assets of Avantha Group

New Delhi, Aug 15 (PTI) Land assets worth more than Rs 678 crore of the Avantha Group have been attached under the anti-money laundering law as part of an alleged bank loan fraud linked probe, the Enforcement Directorate said Thursday.

A provisional order under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) has been issued to attach the properties located in Haryana, Maharashtra and Uttarakhand.

The assets belong to various group companies of Avantha Group, “owned and controlled” by businessman Gautam Thapar.

“On 19.08.2019, CG Power and Industrial Solutions Ltd had made disclosure under Regulation 30 of the SEBI (listing obligations and disclosure requirements) Regulations, 2015 to Bombay Stock Exchange and National Stock Exchange regarding findings which had potential implications on the financial position of the company.

“The disclosure made by CG Power and Industrial Solutions Ltd. revealed that assets and liabilities of the company have been understated considerably,” the ED said in a statement.

It was found that advances to related parties and unrelated parties have been understated, certain assets have been provided as collateral, company was made a co-borrower and/or guarantor for enabling financing of loans which were immediately routed out of the company without due authorisation, it said.

This notice of the disclosure, as per the agency, was taken by the lender banks and on the basis of complaint made by the SBI, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) registered a case in June 2021 against CG Power and Industrial Solution Ltd., Gautam Thapar, K N Neelkanth, Madhav Acharya, B Hariharan, Omkar Goswami and unknown public servant(s) and private person(s) in perpetuating a “bank fraud” on the consortium of banks to the tune of Rs 2,435 crore.

The money laundering case of ED stems from this CBI FIR. It has earlier attached assets worth more than Rs 14 crore and filed a chargesheet under the PMLA apart from arresting a “key managerial personnel” of the company named Madhav Acharya.

It was later detected that Rs 1,307.06 crore have been “diverted” to Avantha Group companies by availing loans, the ED said.

Most of these funds have been paid “without the due authorisation” of the board and the ultimately funds paid to Avantha Group companies remained outstanding, it claimed.