New Delhi, 20 June

Enforcement Directorate on Thursday searched about 35 premises in Delhi-NCR, Mumbai and Nagpur as part of a money laundering probe against a company and its promoters accused of perpetrating an alleged bank loan fraud of more than Rs 20,000 crore, official sources said.

The raids are being carried out on the Amtek Group and its directors, including Arvind Dham, Gautam Malhotra and others. About 35 business and residential premises in Delhi, Gurugram, Noida, Mumbai and Nagpur are being raided since this morning, the sources said.

The probe stems from a CBI FIR against a group entity of Amtek-- ACIL Limited-- on allegations of a bank fraud of more than Rs 20,000 crore in a number of listed companies which were finally taken over in NCLT proceedings at nominal price leaving the consortium of banks with nominal recovery, they said. The Supreme Court too had sought an ED probe, the sources said.

This, as per the ED, led to a loss of about Rs 10,000-Rs 15,000 crore to the exchequer, the sources said. The ED believes that loan funds were "siphoned off" to invest in real estate, foreign investment and investment in new ventures.

Bogus sales, capital assets, debtors and profit were shown in group concerns to get more loans so that it doesnt get non-performing assets (NPA) tag, the sources said. It is alleged that the shares of listed companies were "rigged", books of account were window dressed for obtaining higher loans through collusion of auditors/professionals.

Thousands of crores of assets have been allegedly parked in the name of shell companies, a number of foreign assets have been created and money is still parked under the new names through benami directors and shareholders, the ED found.