The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday told the special Prevention of Money Laundering Act court that ₹12,773 crore was siphoned off from Dewan Housing Finance Corporation (DHFL) as loans for one lakh fictitious individual customers using 79 firms which were linked to promoters of the non-banking finance company.
ED claimed that the information surfaced while it was investigating the case of money laundering by gangster Iqbal Mirchi. This was stated by the ED in court during the hearing for extension of custody of DHFL promoter Kapil Wadhawan. The court extended his custody till January 31.
ED further claimed that the money diverted was also given to Sunblink Real Estate Private Limited to purchase properties belonging to underworld gangster Iqbal Mirchi. The central agency also said that apart from the loan amount given to Sunblink, loans to the tune of ₹685 crore was extended Faith Realtors, ₹510 crore to Marvel Township, ₹215 crore to Able Realty, ₹392 crore to Poseidon Realty and ₹352 crore to Random Realtors between 2010-2011.
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Five companies, which were under the control of Mr. Wadhawan, were integrated with Sunblink Real Estate Private Limited last year, ED said claiming further that it had found digital evidences during the search conducted at DHFL office premises. The agency argued that it needed the custody of Mr. Wadhawan to confront him with the evidence.
Defence counsel Amit Desai questioned the link drawn by ED between DHFL and the money laundering case related to Iqbal Mirchi, and claimed that they were two different cases and had no connection.
Mr. Desai also pointed out that two key conspirators — Dheeraj Wadhawan and Sunny Bhatija of Sunblink Real Estate Private Limited — were never arrested in the case, and said the loan granted to the five companies had nothing to do with the transaction related to Sunblink Real Estate Private Limited.
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