The high-profile banking maverick and founder of Yes Bank, Rana Kapoor, was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in the multi-crore Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative (PMC) Bank loan fraud scam on Monday.
Last year, Kapoor was arrested in the Yes Bank scam. Investigations over the last year have revealed a link between the Rs 3,700-crore Yes Bank scam and Rs 4,300-crore PMC Bank scam.
Kapoor (63) is in judicial custody in the Yes Bank scam case, however, now he has been shifted to the ED custody till 30 January in the PMC Bank case.
Kapoor, the former MD and CEO of Yes Bank, has been booked under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
The arrest of Kapoor follows last week’s raid on Viva Group promoted by Vasai MLA and Bahujan Vikas Aghadi (BVA) founder Hitendra Thakur. After the raids, Viva Group MD Mehul Thakur and CA Madangopal Chaturvedi were arrested.
It may be recalled, in the Yes Bank case – brothers Kapil Wadhawan, the promoter of Dewan Housing Finance Ltd and Dheeraj Wadhawan, founder of RKW Developers Ltd – were arrested last year.
In the PMC Bank scam, HDIL Rakesh Wadhawan and his son Sarang Wadhawan were arrested.
The ED is probing the role of the Viva Group, Kapoor and the Wadhawans for allegedly “siphoning off” a Rs 200 crore loan sanctioned by the Yes Bank to a company called Mack Star Marketing Pvt Ltd.
“This loan was siphoned by the Wadhawans by showing it for fictitious purpose,” it had said in a statement issued last week.
“It was found that Wadhawans illegally and fraudulently transferred two commercial properties of Mack Star in Kaledonia building, Andheri East (Mumbai) valued at Rs 34.36 crore to Viva Holding, a company of Viva Group,” the ED had claimed.
For the transfer of these properties, it had said, two separate sale agreements were prepared on June 26, 2017 and the sale value for both the commercial properties was shown as Rs 34.36 crore.
“In the sale agreements, the purchase amount was shown to be paid by 37 cheques by Viva Holding to Mack Star Marketing Pvt Ltd. Investigation has revealed that these cheques were never encashed in the account of Mack Star and Viva Holding never made payments for the purchase of the said property to Mack Star,” the ED alleged.
(With PTI inputs)
