ED attaches four immovable properties in Cosmos bank loan fraud
Cosmos bank loan fraud: On Monday, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) carried out search operations and attached four immovable properties worth Rs.47.1 crore belonging to Rosary Education Group and its partners Vinay Aranha and Vivek Aranha under the provisions of the PMLA act, an official said.
The ED initiated an investigation after the Pune police lodged an FIR on the complaint of Shivaji Vithal Kale of Cosmos Bank against Vinay Aranha and Vivek Anthony Aranha alleging that the accused had obtained a loan of Rs.20.44 crore from Cosmos Bank by submitting fake documents of the property.
The ED said that its investigation has established that the accused had obtained multiple loans, including car loans in 2013-14 from Cosmos Cooperative Bank Pune by submitting fabricated property documents for the mortgage and grossly overvalued these to avail loans for which they were otherwise ineligible.
Vinay Aranha submitted bogus work invoices (in the guise of the refurbishment of the Rosary schools) and got loans disbursed to bogus vendors which were immediately withdrawn in cash and handed back to him.
The ED said that they also conducted a fund trail investigation and found that Vinay Aranha diverted the loans and got crores of rupees in cash. He got loan amounts disbursed of Rs.34 crore to Paramount Infrastructure, Shabbir Patanwala, Ashwin Kamat, Deepti Enterprises, and others.
“All these so-called vendors have admitted that they did not do any work and returned the cash to Aranha. Despite giving repeated opportunities, Vinay Aranha has not given any account of the utilization of the cash. Even in his schools, they did not maintain any account of revenue, expenditure, and income since 2012 and no ITRs were filed,” the official said.
The ED said that all this was purposefully done to enable Vinay Aranha to siphon off funds as per his whims & fancy. He admittedly splurged large amounts on celebrities & to host gala events (in the name of Vinay Aranha Foundation) for self-aggrandizement and also purchased multiple luxury cars. During the course of the ED investigation, he was evasive & non-cooperative and did not respond to multiple summons of ED.
The central agency arrested Vinay Aranha under PMLA on March 10 and he is presently under ED custody till March 20.
The present market value of the attached properties is estimated to be around Rs.98.20 crore. The attached properties include lands and school buildings which are owned in the name of Vinay Aranha and family. Further investigation into the matter is on.
[With Inputs from IANS]
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