The Enforcement Directorate has provisionally attached ₹51 crore in fixed deposits belonging to Farouk Irani, former managing director of First Leasing Company of India and of his family members and the Irani Family Maintenance Trust, according to a press release from the Directorate.

The release said Irani was arrested last Tuesday by the Chennai Zonal Office of the Enforcement Directorate, under the provisions of Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002.

He is currently under judicial remand.

The action is based on the report of a RBI audit inspection stating that the accounts of the company were falsified and a forensic audit of consortium of lending banks which revealed that the company accounts were falsified to show inflated incomes and profits to the tune of over ₹1,600 crore, the release said.

IDBI and SBI had lodged complaints and CBI, Bank Securities and Fraud Cell, Bengaluru, had registered FIRs and started investigations into these “fraud cases” of about ₹522 crore.

According to the Enforcement Directorate’s statement, the “investigation conducted so far disclosed that Irani is instrumental in the entire fraud and in the process, he enriched himself to the tune of about ₹100 crore.”

During the course of investigations, simultaneous searches were conducted at his Chennai residence, and of his two daughters at Mumbai, which resulted in recovery of fixed deposits of about ₹51 crore.

“Considering the material available on record and on the reasonable belief that the above said fixed deposits are related to the proceeds of crime” the deposits were attached provisionally today under the provisions of Prevention of Money Laundering Act. Further investigations are in progress, the release said.

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