SRINAGAR: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has provisionally attached assets worth over Rs 3,084 crore linked to Reliance Group Chairman Anil Ambani, as part of an extensive money laundering investigation into two of his group companies—Reliance Home Finance Ltd (RHFL) and Reliance Commercial Finance Ltd (RCFL).
According to The Hindu, the attachment includes Ambani’s residence in Mumbai’s Pali Hill, the Reliance Centre in Delhi, and a number of residential, commercial, and land parcels spread across Noida, Ghaziabad, Mumbai, Pune, Thane, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kancheepuram, and East Godavari. The ED, issuing four separate orders under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), stated that both RHFL and RCFL received major investments from Yes Bank between 2017 and 2019— Rs 2,965 crore in RHFL and Rs 2,045 crore in RCFL. By December 2019, these had turned into non-performing assets, leaving outstanding dues of Rs 1,353.5 crore and Rs 1,984 crore, respectively.
The current action follows previous ED raids on at least 35 premises tied to 50 companies and 25 individuals, as well as the questioning of Anil Ambani earlier this year. Investigators suspect that more than Rs 17,000 crore was diverted through complex transactions within numerous group companies, including Reliance Infrastructure, as reported by Business Standard. The ED maintains that the attachments are aimed at “tracing proceeds of crime and securing recovery for public benefit”.
