The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered a case against Cox & Kings Group entity, Ezeego One Travel & Tours Limited (EOTTL), and seven others for alleged fraud involving ₹946.44 crore taken from Yes Bank in loans.
Among those named in the FIR are promoters Ajay Ajit Peter Kerkar and Urrshila Kerkar, besides the then directors, Neelu Singh, Arup Sen, Manisha Amarapurkar, Pesi Patel and Karthik Venkatraman.
The company, incorporated in 2006, was into offering travel products, which included booking flights, hotel and holiday packages.
According to the FIR, the bank had sanctioned ₹650-crore credit to EOTTL in 2017. The facilities were enhanced to ₹1,015 crore by September 2018. After reporting the account as fraud, 100% of the principal outstanding of ₹944.24 crore was written-off in March 2020.
The account turned non-performing asset on June 27, 2019, with the principal outstanding of ₹945.97 crore. A forensic audit revealed alleged diversion of funds and submission of forged documents.
It is alleged that the company transferred a majority of the loan funds to Cox & Kings Limited (CKL). It had provided an agreement purportedly with Verchaska Infotech Private Limited as proof of engaging the latter for building and implementing end-to-end travel ERP, which was funded by Yes Bank. However, later it turned out that the agreement had not been signed.
In October, the ED has arrested Anil Khandelwal, former chief financial officer of CKL, and its internal auditor, Naresh Jain, in connection with another case involving Yes Bank. The agency alleged that the Cox & Kings Group had an outstanding of ₹3,642 crore towards the bank.
“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 not existent,” an ED official had said.
The agency alleged that CKL diverted ₹1,100 crore to another stressed company, without any approval of the board, which had no business relationship with it. The ED said that from Ezeego, ₹150 crore was diverted to Redkite Capital Private Limited, which was promoted by Mr. Khandelwal's family members.