YES Bank co-founder Rana Kapoor was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) early Sunday morning in connection with a money-laundering probe against him and others.
Kapoor’s arrest followed several hours of his questioning at ED’s Ballard Pier office in Mumbai, even as the agency conducted searches at residences of his three daughters in Delhi and Mumbai, an official confirmed. Kapoor’s wife and daughters were also quizzed for hours, they said.
News agency PTI reported investigators will produce Kapoor, 62, before a court in Mumbai later on Sunday and seek his custody.
According to the officials, Kapoor’s wife Bindu, and his daughters – Rakhee Kapoor Tandon, Roshni Kapoor and Radha Kapoor – own “several companies”. They allegedly received kickbacks from various corporate entities in exchange for disbursal of loans from YES Bank.
These kickbacks were paid through complex transactions involving the promoters of Dewan Housing Finance (DHFL) and some other firms, the officials said.
Initial investigations suggest that the loan amount of Rs 600 crore sanctioned by DHFL to Doit Urban Ventures, a company controlled by the family of Rana Kapoor, was actually a kickback for not repaying the loan to YES Bank.
The private lender’s debt exposure to DHFL debenture was to the tune of Rs 3,700 crore between April 2018 and June 2018, and also in July 2018.
The ED is also examining the loan documents of YES Bank and the terms on which it sanctioned Rs 750 crore to Dheeraj Wadhawan’s RKW Developers for a project near Mumbai’s Bandra Reclamation.
The agency came across this transaction during its probe into the DHFL promoters’ role in financing funds to gangster Iqbal Memon (alias Iqbal Mirchi), in a money-laundering case registered against the housing finance firm and many others.
Sources said the agency might also register a separate case against Rana Kapoor, depending on the outcome of the search operation. However, for a separate case, a police complaint has to be registered for predicate offence to probe the matter under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).