ED attaches assets worth Rs 2,747 crore belonging to ABG Shipyard in Rs 22,842 crore bank fraud case

New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday (September 22, 2022) said that it has attached assets worth Rs 2,747.69 crore belonging to ABG Shipyard Limited, its group companies and other related entities, in a bank loan fraud case. The attached assets include Shipyard at Surat and Dahej located in Gujarat, agricultural lands and plots, various commercial and residential premises in Gujarat and Maharashtra and bank accounts owned by ABG Shipyard Ltd, the law enforcement agency said in a statement.

The development comes a day after the CBI arrested the founder of the company Rishi Kamlesh Agarwal.

The ED initiated a money laundering investigation on the basis of an FIR registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), AC-V, Delhi against ABG Shipyard Limited and others. 

ED has attached assets worth Rs. 2747.69 Crore belonging to ABG Shipyard Ltd., its group companies and other related entities under PMLA, 2002 in a bank loan fraud case. — ED (@dir_ed) September 22, 2022

The ED probe revealed that ABG Shipyard Ltd and its Chairman & Managing Director Rishi Kamlesh Agarwal availed various credit facilities/loans from a consortium of Banks led by ICICI Bank on the pretext of meeting its capital requirements and other business expenses. ABG Shipyard Ltd, however, misappropriated the credit facilities availed from the consortium and diverted the funds for purposes other than its actual cause in the garb of various loans/advances/investments, etc to various related entities incorporated in India and abroad. 

These alleged illegal transactions eventually caused monetary loss to the tune of Rs 22,842 crores to the consortium.

ED has traced movable and immovable assets totaling Rs 2,747.69 crore belonging to ABG Shipyard Ltd, its group companies, Bermaco Energy Systems Ltd, Dhananjay Datar, Savita Dhananjay Datar, Krishna Gopal Toshniwal, Viren Ahuja and attached them under the provisions of Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002.

Further investigation is in progress, the probe agency said.