The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has attached a Rs 127-crore flat of Yes Bank co-promoter Rana Kapoor in London in connection with a money laundering investigation against him and others, the central agency said on Friday. The agency issued a provisional order for attaching the property — Apartment1, 77 South Audley Street, London — under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
“The market value of the flat is 13.5 million pound (about Rs 127 crore). The property was purchased by Rana Kapoor in 2017 for 9.9 million pound (Rs 93 crore) in the name of DOIT Creations Jersey Limited and he is the beneficial owner,” the ED said in a statement. It claimed that the agency obtained “information from a reliable source that Kapoor was trying to alienate this property in London and that he has hired a reputed property consultant.” “Enquiries from open sources confirmed that this property has been listed for sale on several websites,” it said.
Mr Kapoor’s wife and three daughters are also among 13 accused named by the Central Bureau of Investigation in the money-laundering case at India’s fourth-largest private lender.
According to the case filed by the CBI, Yes Bank invested around Rs 3,700 crore in DHFL or Dewan Housing and Finance Ltd around the same time it granted a Rs 600 crore loan to a company called Doit, owned by Mr Kapoor’s three daughters Roshni Kapoor, Rakhee Kapoor Tandon and Radha Kapoor.
The agency also alleged that Yes Bank sanctioned a loan of Rs 750 crore to RKW Developers Pvt Ltd, which is a DHFL group company, for their Bandra Reclamation Project in Mumbai. The whole amount was allegedly siphoned off by Kapil Wadhawan, a relative of RKW director Dheeraj Rajesh Kumar Wadhawan.
The CBI alleged that Mr Kapoor, in criminal conspiracy with Kapil Wadhawan and others, had invested in DHFL through Yes Bank to gain undue benefits for himself and his family.