The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested Anil Khandelwal, former chief financial officer of Cox & Kings Limited (CKL), and its internal auditor, Naresh Jain, in connection with the Yes Bank case. The agency has got their seven-day custody.
According to the ED, the money laundering probe revealed that the Cox and Kings group had an outstanding of ₹3,642 crore towards Yes Bank. The group allegedly fabricated its consolidated financials by manipulating the balance sheets of overseas subsidiaries.
Some board resolutions submitted to banks for sanctioning the loans were also found to be forged. Yes Bank gave loans in violation of the norms, at the instance of its then chairman-cum-managing director, Rana Kapoor, it is alleged.
“During 2015-19, sales of ₹3,908 crore was made to 15 non-existent/fictitious customers. A majority of collection shown in ledgers from a CKG entity, Ezeego, was not found in the bank statements. There are fictitious 15 high-value debtors reflected in the books of accounts. Another 147 sets of customers also appeared to be suspicious and non-existent,” said an ED official.
The agency alleges that CKL diverted ₹1,100 crore to another stressed company, without any approval of the board, which had no business relationship with it.
“During the whole process, Mr. Khandelwal and Mr. Jain acquired mortgaged property amounting to ₹63 crore in their owned business entity, Reward Business Solutions, without paying a single penny from their pocket,” the official said. The accused also bought various immovable properties from the diverted funds.
The agency said that from Ezeego, ₹150 crore were diverted to Redkite Capital Private Limited, which was promoted by Mr. Khandelwal’s family members. “Investigations conducted so far has revealed that the bank transactions of the Cox and Kings Group are not matching with the books of accounts...,” it said.
