ED attaches Rotomac properties worth Rs 177 cr

The  (ED) on Tuesday said it has attached Vikram Kothari owned Kanpur-based Rotomac Global's properties worth Rs 177 crore in connection with a money laundering case involving an alleged bank fraud amounting to Rs 3,695 crore.

The attached properties of the company and those of its directors are located in Uttar Pradesh's Kanpur, Gujarat's Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar, Uttarakhand's Dehradun and Maharashtra's Mumbai, an official of the financial probe agency said.

The ED's action comes under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002, on the basis of a Central Bureau of Investigation's First Information Report.

The probe had revealed that the accused persons in the guise of merchants, without having any genuine business transactions, defaulted in meeting its payments obligation to the bank by diverting and siphoning off the funds.

"The investigations have revealed that Rotomac Global Pvt. Ltd. has indulged in merchanting trade with limited number of buyers and seller, wherein it used to receive back the discounted LC (letters of credit) amount from the overseas beneficiary after deduction of 1.5 to two per cent commission by them either directly into the accounts of Rotomac group companies or into the accounts of overseas companies controlled by Vikram Kothari," the agency said in a statement.

"Their discounted LC amount thereafter have been used by Rotomac Global Pvt. Ltd. for other business activities such as FDR, iron ore purchase and investment in real estate," it said.

The ED and the CBI had filed a case in February after the Bank of Baroda filed a complaint against Kothari, his wife Sadhana, his son Rahul and some unidentified bank officials and private persons.

Kothari is the Chairman and Managing Director of the Rotomac group while his wife and son are directors.

According to the CBI FIR, Kothari had obtained Rs 2,919 crore from various banks, including from the Bank of India (Rs 754.77 crore), Bank of Baroda (Rs 456.63 crore), Indian Overseas Bank (Rs 771.07 crore), Union Bank of India (Rs 458.95 crore), Allahabad Bank (Rs 330.68 crore), Bank of Maharashtra (Rs 49.82 crore), and Oriental Bank of Commerce (Rs 97.47 crore).

[ Source- IANS]