Searches in Delhi-NCR, Mumbai-Nagpur in money laundering case, ED action in bank loan fraud

The ED raided 35 premises in Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, and Nagpur on Wednesday in a money laundering case. Raids were conducted to probe a money laundering case against a company and its promoters for allegedly fraudulently availing bank loans of more than Rs 20,000 crore.

The ED is conducting raids on MTech Group and its promoters, Arvind Dham and Gautam Malhotra, among others. It will likely cover around 35 commercial and residential premises in Delhi, Gurugram, Noida, Mumbai, and Nagpur. Investigations were initiated based on a CBI case against ACIL Ltd., a corpus of MTech Group.

According to ED, this caused a loss of about 10,000 to 15,000 crores to the government treasury. Sources said that to get more loans, the group showed fake sales, capital assets, debtors, and profits so it would not get the tag of non-performing assets. Along with this, it was alleged that there was manipulation in the listed shares. ED said that properties of thousands of crores were created in the name of shell companies, and till today, money is still deposited under new names through anonymous directors and shareholders.