Yes Bank fraud: ED arrests two senior officials of Cox & Kings

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday arrested Anil Khandelwal, chief financial officer (CFO) and Naresh Jain, internal auditor of global tours and travel

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday arrested Anil Khandelwal, chief financial officer (CFO) and Naresh Jain, internal auditor of global tours and travel company Cox and Kings Group (CKG) in connection with alleged money laundering linked to Yes Bank case and its founder Rana Kapoor.

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Confirming the development a ED official said that the two have been arrested under section 19 of Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA).

Both accused were produced before the special judge (PMLA) and were granted seven days of ED custody.”

Earlier in June, the ED had raided five premises belonging to senior management of CKG.

On March 8, ED had arrested Yes Bank’s founder Rana Kapoor, who is currently in judicial custody. The agency has been scanning the transactions made by the bank to its borrowers. “During the investigation, irregularities were also noticed in relation to the loan sanctioned to CKG. The group had created multiple layers of onshore and offshore subsidiary across the globe, through which the monies were siphoned off,” said an ED officer.

The investigation also revealed that the loan sanctioned from Yes bank was driven by then CMD Rana Kapoor and was given bypassing the norms. ED gathered the evidence regarding clear instructions of Rana Kapoor to the concerned bank officials to get the said loan continued and not to take efforts to recover it.

The probe has also revealed that during the fiscal year 2015 to the fiscal year 2019, sales of ₹3,908 crore was made to 15 non-existent/fictitious customers. Majority of the collection shown in ledgers from Ezeego (another group entity of CKG ) was not found in the bank statements. Also, there are fictitious 15 high-value debtors reflected in the books of accounts. Another 147 sets of customers also appeared to be suspicious and not existent. The Cox & King Limited (CKL) has diverted ₹1,100 crore to another stressed company without any approval of board which has no business relationship with the company, the agency said in a release.

Khandelwal and Jain also acquired the mortgaged property amounting to ₹63 crore in their business entity Reward Business Solutions without paying a penny from their pocket.

The investigation further revealed that Khandelwal and Jain purchased various immovable properties from the funds diverted from CKG.

It further revealed that from Ezeego, ₹150 crore were diverted to Redkite Capital Private Limited which was promoted by family members of Khandelwal and Jain.

Investigators have found that the bank transactions of Cox and King Group are not matching with the books of accounts and Khandelwal & Jain creating disparities between the books of accounts and the bank statements to camouflage the fraud.

During the seven-day custody, ED officials intend to grill the two in relation to the irregularities and collect more evidence.