The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has claimed that DHFL’s promoters formed 87 shell companies and created more than 260,000 “fictitious borrowers” and further set up a “virtual branch” to divert money borrowed from banks.
In its charge sheet filed last month in connection with India’s biggest bank fraud, involving Rs34,614 crore, CBI commented that Kapil and Dheeraj Wadhawan diverted funds and purchased 24 paintings of Rs63 crore.
Taking cognizance of the charge sheet, a special CBI court last week ordered that all 75 accused in the case be summoned to the court. “The investigation at the overseas level has also to be conducted to trace DHFL’s trail of funds,” said the court order.
The charge sheet, a copy of which was seen by ET, said DHFL disbursed Rs11,765 crore to 87 shell companies between 2007 and 2017.
Further, CBI investigation has revealed that the Wadhawans has incorporated the entities in the name of their employees, associates and friends.
Branch Code 001
The charge sheet claimed that they fraudulently and dishonestly used these entities as vehicles to divert funds availed from banks, from the accounts of DHFL to their own entities.
CBI said in the charge sheet that DHFL had many branches for loan disbursement and the company also created a specific code name “Bandra Branch” for disbursement to these shell companies.
“DHFL promoters intentionally transferred the funds in these companies when required by them for any business or personal propaganda,” said the charge sheet. “Most of these Bandra book companies did not have any project or order to avail loan from DHFL. The loans to these shell companies were disbursed with approval from Kapil Wadhawan.”
It said the “Bandra branch” with code 001 “did not exist physically and was a virtual branch created in pursuance of criminal conspiracy hatched amongst the accused promoters (for) siphoning of DHFL funds available from banks.”
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