Avantha Group promoter Gautam Thapar has been arrested by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) regarding a money laundering case, in which he is also under the radar.
According to news agency PTI, Thapar was detained on August 4 under the terms of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) after the ED conducted searches on him and his companies in Mumbai and Delhi. On August 4, Thapar is scheduled to appear in court, when the agency will seek his custody.
After learning of a FIR filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation, the ED began the money laundering investigation (CBI).
The ED is looking into an alleged transaction involving his business Avantha Realty, Yes Bank co-founder Rana Kapoor, and his wife, who are already under investigation by the agency under the PMLA.
“The (CBI) FIR alleges that Rana Kapoor, then MD and CEO of Yes Bank Limited, obtained illegal gratification in the form of a property in a prime location in Delhi at much less than the realisable market value belonging to Avantha Realty Ltd for sanction of a loan to ARL and for extending concessions, relaxations and waivers in the already existing credit facilities provided to Avantha Group companies and for advancing new and additional loans to them by Yes Bank Ltd,” the ED had said earlier.
Last year, the CBI charged Kapoor and his wife Bindu of receiving a bribe of Rs 307 crore by buying a home for half the market price from a realty business in a small Delhi neighbourhood and arranging Rs 1,900 crore in bank loans in exchange.
The CBI believed that the special discount payment for the 1.2 acre bungalow on Amrita Shergill Marg in Delhi was a validation to Kapoor through his company Bliss Abode Pvt. Ltd. in exchange for the non-realisation of over Rs 1,900 crore in debts from Yes Bank to Gautam Thapar’s Avantha Realty and group companies.