Business / Assets of Mallya, Nirav Modi and Choksi worth ₹9,371 crore transferred to banks, govt

New Delhi: The Directorate of Enforcement has transferred seized assets worth ₹9371.17 crore to public sector banks that suffered losses due to financial frauds committed by fugitive businessmen Vijay Mallya, Mehul Choksi and Nirav Modi.

The total assets attached by the ED are worth ₹18,170.02 crore.

"ED not only attached/seized assets worth of ₹18,170.02 crore (80.45% of the total loss to banks) in the case of Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi under the PMLA but also transferred a part of attached/seized assets of ₹9371.17 Crore to the PSBs and Central Government," said the agency.

The ED also said that it has unearthed a money trail of domestic and international transactions and stashing of assets abroad.

The investigation revealed that the three accused used dummy entities controlled by them for rotation and siphoning off the funds provided by the banks, it said.

Extradition of accused

New Delhi has been seeking the extradition of Indian fugitives Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi from the UK to face trial in India.

In February this year, UK's Home Secretary Priti Patel signed the extradition order of Modi. Similarly, Mallya, owner of now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines is facing extradition and is out on bail. In 2019 his extradition was also approved by the then Home Secretary.

Mallya is accused of fraud and money laundering allegedly amounting to around ₹9,000 crore. He had left the country on 2 March 2016 and was declared an economic offender under the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act in January 2019.

The 65-year-old has exhausted the full legal procedures available to him to fight the government's extradition efforts to bring him back to India face charges of defrauding a consortium of banks in relation to the collapse of Kingfisher Airlines in 2013.

As regards to Choksi, the Central Bureau of Investigation, which is probing the PNB bank fraud case, recently filed an affidavit in Dominica High Court opposing his bail petition.

Choksi and Modi are wanted in India for ₹13,500 crore bank fraud in Punjab National Bank. They had fled the country in the first week of January 2018, weeks before the PNB scam rocked the Indian banking industry.

The duo allegedly bribed officials of the state-run bank to get Letters of Undertaking (LoU) on the basis of which they availed loans from overseas banks that remained unpaid.

The allegedly corrupt bank officials did not enter these LoUs in the core banking software of PNB, thus evading scrutiny. The non-payment of these LoUs or bank guarantees worth ₹13,500 crore resulted in default and became a liability on the bank.