ED attaches assets of businessman who duped bank of Rs 112cr

New Delhi, Dec 23 (IANS) The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday said it has provisionally attached movable and immovable assets worth Rs 100 crore belonging to a businessman Rebba Satyanarayana and his family members in connection with a Rs 112 crore money laundering case

The accused cheated the IDBI Bank by taking fraudulent fish tank KCC (Kisan Credit Card) loans.

"We have attached the agriculture lands, fish ponds, commercial sites, plots and flats in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, and bank balance," said an ED official.

Earlier, a case against the accused was lodged by the federal probe agency CBI. The ED initiated it's inquiry on the basis of the FIR of the CBI.

Satyanarayana and others were accused of fraudulently availing KCC fish tank loans in the name of 143 benami borrowers from IDBI Bank, Rajahmundry Branch to the tune of Rs 112.41 crore.

The ED found during the probe that Satyanarayana was the aggregator and end-beneficiary of all the KCC loans sanctioned to the borrowers.

"The said KCC Loan amounts were firstly transferred to the Borrowers' Savings Accounts (opened by Rebba Satyanarayana in their name) and later on, most of the said loan amount was withdrawn in cash and handed over to him which he utilised for various things," said an ED official.

The official said that the accused utilised the funds for the repayment of earlier loans which he took in the name of other entities. He was controlling all the benami entities. The accused also purchased a lot of properties in the names of his relatives.

"Lastly, he invested in his import and export businesses. This business was being run by his relatives and others," said an ED official.

The ED found that properties purchased by Satyanarayana in his relatives' and benami names were again used to mortgage for getting other loans in their other business entities.

"He is a habitual offender who is taking cyclical loans to repay old loans and divert portions of the sanctioned loans to run his various benami ventures. He was indulged habitually and continuously in fraudulently availing loans from banks by pledging/mortgaging properties and for repayment of the same, either he used to avail fresh loans or used to settle said loan under OTS in a cycled manner," said the ED official.

The accused had incorporated a foreign entity in New Jersey, US and exported sea food/cultured prawns worth more than $24,00,000 from his domestic entity to the said foreign entity, which is pending for export realisation.

This non realisation of the export is also suspected, the official said.