The Enforcement Directorate (ED) – the agency in charge of probing money laundering cases, conducted raids on Friday morning in at least five office and residential premises in Mumbai and few other locations of beleaguered ex MD & CEO of ICICI Bank, Chanda Kochhar and Videocon promoter Venugopal Dhoot in connection with a bank loan fraud case.
The agency had registered a criminal case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) earlier this month against Chanda Kochhar, her husband Deepak Kochhar, Venugopal Dhoot and others to probe irregularities and corrupt banking practices in sanctioning loans by ICICI Bank to Videocon Industries to the tune of ₹ 1,875 crore.
It is alleged that Dhoot had invested in Chanda Kochhar’s husband’s company, Nupower, through his firm Supreme Energy, after ICICI Bank, which at that time was headed by Chanda Kochhar, granted loans to Dhoot’s company.
Another agency – the CBI had investigated a complex web of transactions between Nupower and Supreme Energy and conducted raids at the office premises of those firms, however, it had not conducted searches at Chanda Kochhar’s residence. Today’s searches would be the first by any investigative agency at her residence.
Taking cognisance of the findings by CBI, a team of Enforcement Directorate sleuths, assisted by the Police, conducted raids this morning on selected premises to probe whether the alleged kickbacks generated in the loan deal were laundered to create tainted assets.
Prior to these searches, evidence was found that six loans worth ₹ 1,875 crore were sanctioned to the Videocon Group and companies associated with it between June 2009 and October 2011 in an alleged violation of laid down policies of ICICI Bank, which have now become part of the probe. The loans were declared non-performing assets in 2012, causing a loss of ₹ 1,730 crore to the bank.
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