Loan fraud: ED attaches Mercedes car, assets worth Rs 25 Cr

The Enforcement Directorate today attached assets worth Rs 25 crore, including a Mercedes Benz and a Toyota cars, of a Managing Director of a firm based here and his family in connection with its money laundering probe into a case of alleged bank loan fraud of Rs 522 crore.
The attachment order was issued against Farouk Irani, MD of Ms First Leasing Company of India Limited (FICIL), and his family under provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) by the zonal office of the agency here.
Irani was arrested by ED in June and is at present in jail and the agency had earlier attached assets worth Rs 51 crore in the same case.

"Further investigations revealed that two residential properties were also acquired using the proceeds of crime. Similarly, two cars were also acquired using the proceeds of crime.
"Considering the material available on record and on the reasonable belief that these properties are related to the proceeds of crime, these properties worth over Rs 25 crore were attached provisionally," the agency said.
The two cars seized are Mercedes Benz worth Rs 48 lakh and Toyota Corolla valued at Rs 18 lakh, they said.

The Enforcement Directorate had registered a criminal case, based on a CBI FIR last year, against Irani and his firm for allegedly cheating IDBI Bank to the tune of Rs 274 crore and SBI to the tune of about Rs 248 crore a few years ago.

Both the banks had filed a complaint in this regard with the CBI.
Officials had claimed that Irani was a "key person" in the working of the company and the alleged siphoning of the loan amount.
FLCIL, they had said, is a listed company registered under the Companies Act and is a Non-Banking Financial company registered with the RBI.
ED is probing multiple cases of bank frauds across the country at present with the most prominent being the Kingfisher Airlines-IDBI alleged bank loan defraud case involving the owner of the now-defunct airline and liquor baron Vijay Mallya.