The Enforcement Directorate has arrested Gautam Thapar of Avantha Group in connection with Rs. 466 crore money laundering case. Thapar’s arrest came soon after his premises were raided in Delhi and Mumbai.
A report by news agency PTI said that Thapar may be produced before a court later today when the ED would seek his custody.
Thapar is being investigated for his company’s alleged links with the Yes Bank co-founder Rana Kapoor and his wife. Both of them are already under the ED scanner for money laundering charges.
The ED had filed a case of money laundering against Thapar after the CBI filed an FIR against the businessman. The Indian federal probe agency had booked filed an FIR against Oyster Buildwell Private Ltd, Thapar and others for allegedly diverting more than Rs 466 crore in Yes Bank during 2017-19.
According to the CBI, Oyster Buildwell Pvt Ltd (OBPL) is part of Thapar’s Avantha group with over 97 percent stake held by Avantha Realty.
Thapar was sacked as the chairman of CG Power in 2019 after a multi-crore scam within the company came to light.
The ED, according to PTI, had said earlier, “The (CBI) FIR alleges that Rana Kapoor, then MD and CEO of Yes Bank Limited, obtained illegal gratification in the form of a property in a prime location in Delhi at much less than the realisable market value belonging to Avantha Reality Ltd for sanction of a loan to ARL and for extending concessions, relaxations and waivers in the already existing credit facilities provided to Avantha Group companies and for advancing new and additional loans to them by Yes Bank Ltd.”
The crisis in Yes Bank had come to limelight after the Reserve Bank of India in 2020 formally suspended the bank’s board of directors and issued a moratorium. The RBI also imposed a withdrawal limit of Rs 50,000 for customers having their accounts in Yes Bank. Demands had grown for the arrest of Rana Kapoor, who had famously hailed Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s demonetisation announcement calling it a masterstroke.
The RBI had later taken control of the beleaguered bank, while the government-owned State Bank of India said that it will buy 49 percent stakes in the bank founded by Rana Kapoor before working out its bail-out deal.