The Enforcement Directorate on Friday said it has made a fresh and the third arrest in connection with a money laundering probe against businessman Anil Ambani’s group company Reliance Power linked to issuance of an alleged fake bank guarantee of Rs 68 crore.
ED arrests Amar Nath Dutta for aiding fake bank guarantees
Amar Nath Dutta, a resident of Kolkata, was taken into custody on Thursday under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). A special court sent him to ED custody till November 10, it said in a statement. The federal probe agency has arrested former Reliance Power CFO Ashok Kumar Pal and a private person Partha Sarathi Biswal, MD of an Odisha-based company named Biswal Tradelink, sometime back as part of this investigation.
“He (Dutta) claims to provide consultancy services in Trade Financing. Dutta played an active role along with Ashok Pal and Partha Sarathi Biswal, for providing fake bank guarantees,” the agency said.
SECI loses Rs 100 crore
The case pertains to a bank guarantee of Rs 68.2 crore submitted to the Solar Energy Corporation of India Limited (SECI) on behalf of Reliance NU BESS Limited, a subsidiary of Reliance Power, a listed company, which was found to be “fake”. The company was formerly known as Maharashtra Energy Generation Limited. “SECI suffered a loss of over Rs 100 crore due to fraudulent bank guarantee submission by Reliance Power subsidiary (Reliance NU BESS Ltd.),” the agency said. Biswal Tradelink, the ED had alleged, operated a racket for providing “fake” bank guarantees for business groups.
The Reliance Group had earlier said Anil Ambani was “not on the Board of Reliance Power Limited for more than 3.5 years and is not concerned with this matter in any manner.”
ED arrests Kolkata man in fake bank guarantee case linked to Reliance Power arm
The money laundering case stems from a November 2024 FIR of Delhi Police’s Economic Offences Wing (EOW). It was alleged that the Biswal Tradelink was engaged in issuing “fake” bank guarantees against a commission of 8 per cent. Probe found that Reliance NU BESS Ltd. submitted a bank guarantee from the FirstRand Bank located in Manila, Philippines, but the said bank does not have a branch in that country, according to the ED.
Reliance Power had said earlier that it had been a “victim of fraud, forgery and cheating conspiracy” in this case and it had made due disclosures in this context to the stock exchange on November 7, 2024. A group spokesperson had said a criminal complaint was lodged by them against the third party (accused company) with Delhi Police’s EOW in October 2024 and the “due process” of law would follow.
Fake SBI domain used in Rs 68 crore fraud
The ED sources had said that the Bhubaneswar-based company (Biswal Tradelink) was using an email domain — s-bi.co.in — similar to sbi.co.in to create a “facade” of genuineness that the communication was being sent by the State Bank of India (SBI), the country’s largest lender. The fake domain was used to send “forged” communication to the SECI, they said. Biswal Tradelink, according to the ED, was a “mere paper entity” as its registered office was a residential property belonging to a relative of Biswal.
The ED said its investigation is continuing into various aspects, including identification of beneficiaries of proceeds of crime, tracing of end-use of funds, assets acquired from the alleged illicit funds and examination of the larger conspiracy and roles of additional persons and entities.