ED arrests CFO and Internal Auditor of Cox & Kings in Yes Bank case
Anil Khandelwal and Naresh Jain have been remanded to 7 days of ED custody in the money laundering case
The Enforcement Directorate has arrested Anil Khandelwal, CFO of Cox & Kings Group (CKG), and Naresh Jain, Internal Auditor of Cox & Kings Group, under Section 19 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA) in the Yes Bank money laundering case.
Both the accused were produced before the Special Judge (PMLA) and have been remanded to 7 days of ED custody.
During the PMLA investigation in the Yes Bank case it has surfaced that Yes Bank has a total outstanding of Rs 3,642 crore in respect of M/s Cox & Kings Group of Companies (CKG). Further investigation revealed that CKG forged its consolidated financials by manipulating the balance sheets of overseas subsidiaries.
In addition, some board resolutions submitted to banks for sanctioning the loans were also found to be forged. Further investigation has revealed that the loan sanction from Yes Bank was driven by then CMD Rana Kapoor by bypassing the norms. ED has gathered evidences of clear instruction of Rana Kapoor to the concerned bank officials to get the said loan continued and not to take efforts to recover it.
The investigation also revealed during FY 2015 to FY 2019, sales of Rs 3,908 crore was made to 15 non-existent/fictitious customers. Majority of collection shown in ledgers from Ezeego (another group entity of CKG) was not found in the bank statements. Also, there are fictitious 15 high value debtors in the books of accounts. Another 147 sets of customers also appeared to be suspicious and not existent.
The Cox & King Limited (CKL) has diverted Rs 1,100 crore to another stressed company without any approval of board which has no business relationship with the company. During the whole process, Anil Khandelwal and Naresh Jain acquired the mortgaged property amounting to Rs 63 crore in their owned business entity M/s Reward Business Solutions “without paying a penny from their pocket”.
Investigation further revealed that Khandelwal and Jain purchased various immovable properties from the funds diverted from Cox & Kings Group. Further investigation revealed that from Ezeego, Rs 150 crore was diverted to Redkite Capital Private Limited which was promoted by family members of the duo.
Investigations conducted so far have revealed that the bank transactions of Cox & King Group are not matching with the books of accounts, and Khandelwal and Naresh Jain have created disparities between the books of accounts and the bank statements to camouflage the fraud. Further investigations are on.
