The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has attached assets worth more than Rs 3,000 crore linked to Reliance Group Chairman Anil Ambani as part of a money laundering investigation against his group companies, official sources said on Monday. The federal probe agency has issued four provisional orders under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) for attaching the properties, including the 66-year-old Ambani's house in Pali Hill, Mumbai, apart from other residential and commercial properties of his group companies, they said. A plot of land belonging to Reliance Centre on Maharaja Ranjit Singh Marg in Delhi and multiple other assets in the national capital, Noida, Ghaziabad, Mumbai, Pune, Thane, Hyderabad, Chennai and East Godavari have also been attached. According to the sources, the total value of the attached assets is Rs 3,084 crore.
The case pertains to alleged diversion and laundering of public funds raised by Reliance Home Finance Ltd. (RHFL) and Reliance Commercial Finance Ltd. (RCFL). During 2017-2019, Yes Bank invested Rs 2,965 crore in RHFL instruments and Rs 2,045 crore in RCFL instruments. These turned into "non-performing" investments by December 2019, with Rs 1,353.50 crore then outstanding for RHFL and Rs 1,984 crore for RCFL, according to the ED. The action against Ambani pertains to alleged financial irregularities and collective loan "diversion" pegged at more than Rs 17,000 crore by multiple group companies, including Reliance Infrastructure. The businessman was questioned in the case by the ED in August. This came after the agency searched 35 premises of 50 companies and 25 people, including executives of his business group, in Mumbai on July 24. The ED's money laundering case stems from a Central Bureau of Investigation FIR.