New Delhi, Nov 3 (UNI) The Enforcement Directorate (ED) today said that it has provisionally attached over 40 properties of the Reliance Anil Ambani Group, including the family’s famed Pali Hill residence in Mumbai, in a money laundering case, with the total value of the seized assets exceeding Rs 3,000 crore.
Properties based in Delhi, Noida, Ghaziabad, Mumbai, Pune, Thane, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kancheepuram, and East Godavari have been attached.
The attached assets comprise office spaces, residential units, and land parcels, with an aggregate value of approximately Rs 3,084 crore.
The case stems from the alleged diversion and laundering of public funds raised by two group companies: Reliance Home Finance Ltd. (RHFL) and Reliance Commercial Finance Ltd. (RCFL). The ED probe found that between 2017 and 2019, Yes Bank invested nearly Rs 5,000 crore in these companies. These investments subsequently turned non-performing, leaving outstanding dues of over Rs 3,300 crore.
The investigation uncovered a complex routing of funds to bypass regulations. According to the ED, public money invested in the erstwhile Reliance Nippon Mutual Fund was indirectly channeled through Yes Bank to the Anil Ambani Group companies, sidestepping SEBI’s conflict-of-interest rules that prohibit direct mutual fund investments in group firms.
The ED’s fund tracing revealed “intentional and consistent control failures” in the lending process. The agency stated that loans to group-linked entities were “speed processed” without essential checks.
“Many loans were processed on the same day as application, sanction, and agreement, and in some cases, disbursal preceded sanction,” the ED said, adding that field investigations were waived and documents were often found to be “left blank, overwritten, and undated.”
In a related development, the ED has also intensified its probe into the Reliance Communications Ltd. (RCOM) loan fraud case, where it has detected a diversion of over Rs 13,600 crore.
The ED stated that it continues to trace the proceeds of crime and that recoveries made through such attachments would ultimately benefit the general public.
