The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has seized An AgustaWestland helicopter from the property of a builder accused of money laundering and cheating in the ₹ 34,000 crore Diwan Housing Finance Corporation Ltd scam case.
India’s biggest bank fraud.
The helicopter was found inside a large swanky hall in Pune built like a hangar, with pop culture posters decorating the tall walls at the property, which belonged to one of the DHFL scam accused, Avinash Bhosale.
The CBI has been carrying out searches at many locations for the last few days to locate assets acquired from the proceeds of the scam, officials have said.
Former DHFL top executives Kapil Wadhawan, Deepak Wadhawan and others were charged by the CBI on June 20 in connection with what is called India’s biggest bank fraud case. They allegedly cheated a consortium of 17 banks led by Union Bank of India by diverting ₹ 34,615 crore bank loans to fake account books of DHFL. Then they allegedly used shell companies and a parallel accounting system, known as “Bandra Books”, to steal public funds in DHFL by giving fake retail loans to fake entities.
Luxury and vanity items worth lakhs and crores continue to tumble out from the properties of the DHFL scam accused. Earlier this month, 25 luxury watches worth over ₹ 1 crore in addition to 56 paintings worth ₹ 38 crore were seized by the CBI from the Wadhawans and others linked to the scam. Forensic audits point out several instances of large-value loans given to fake entities without due diligence and security deposit or pledges.
The CBI has said in its chargesheet that the Pune-based builder also allegedly spent ₹300 crore received from DHFL to buy a property in London. Another ₹43 crore was disbursed to ABIL Infrastructure and ₹ 140 crore to Metropolis Hotels.
Kapil Wadhawan had sanctioned this disbursement shortly after Yes Bank made an investment in DHFL in April-May 2018, the CBI said. The interesting part is that both ABIL Infrastructure and Metropolis Hotels are owned or controlled by Avinash Bhosale, investigators have said.
