ED arrests company promoter in Rs 25,000 cr bank loan fraud

New Delhi, Jul 11 (PTI) The Enforcement Directorate on Thursday said it has arrested the director of an insolvent automotive equipment manufacturing company as part of a money laundering probe linked to an alleged Rs 25,000-crore bank loan fraud case.

Arvind Dham, the promoter and one of the directors of the Amtek Group, was taken into custody on Tuesday (July 9), it said in a statement.

A special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court in Delhi sent him to seven days Enforcement Directorate (ED) custody after he was produced before it on Wednesday.

The money laundering case against the company and its directors stems from a CBI FIR that was registered on written complaints from the IDBI Bank and the Bank of Maharashtra, the ED said.

It was alleged that loans were diverted through cheating, fraud and criminal breach of trust, causing a wrongful loss of worth Rs 673.35 crore to the banks, the agency said.

The Supreme Court in February, while deciding a public interest petition against the Amtek Auto group of companies, directed the ED to investigate the case.

The agency conducted raids last month at the premises of Dham, another company director Gautam Malhotra and others in Delhi-NCR, Mumbai and Nagpur.

The ED said the Amtek group defaulted on loans exceeding Rs 25,000 crore taken from more than 15 banks.

Amtek group companies like ARG Limited, ACIL limited, Amtek Auto Limited, Metallic Forging Limited and Castex Technologies Limited along with other group firms were taken to insolvency, the resolution of which has led to a huge haircut of more than 80 per cent for the banks, causing substantial loss to the financial system, the agency said.

Dham, it alleged, was the “beneficial owner” of several benami properties in various companies, with employees of the Amtek group like peons, drivers, field boys and persons with “no linkage” to the group companies, acting as directors.

He continued to possess such properties beneficially held by him and “never disclosed” it to any of the banks or creditors, the agency said.