The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on July 13 arrested Ajay Nawandar, allegedly an associate of fugitive criminal Dawood Ibrahim's trusted aide Chhota Shakeel, in connection with the probe into the Rs 34,000-crore loss caused by bankrupt Dewan Housing Finance Ltd (DHFL) to a consortium of banks led by the Union Bank of India.
Last week, the CBI carried out searches at three locations in Mumbai and Pune, from where it recovered a painting and sculptures worth over Rs 40 crore. During the searches at the premises of Ajay Ramesh Nawandar in Mumbai, the CBI seized a huge collection of luxury watches worth crores of rupees, including Rolex Oyster Perpetual, Cartier, Omega and Hublot Michael Kors.
The agency also carried out searches at the flats of Rebecca Dewan at Khar West in Mumbai. The flats worth Rs 8 crore are believed to have been purchased by Kapil Wadhawan of DHFL.
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The CBI has booked DHFL, its former CMD Kapil Wadhawan, director Dheeraj Wadhawan and others for an alleged bank fraud of Rs 34,615 crore, making it the biggest such case probed by the agency.
Following the registration of the case on June 20, a team of over 50 officials of the agency conducted searches at 12 premises in Mumbai belonging to the FIR-listed accused, including Sudhakar Shetty of Amaryllis Realtors and eight other builders, on June 22.
The CBI acted on a complaint from the Union Bank of India the leader of a 17-member lender consortium that had extended credit facilities to DHFL of Rs 42,871 crore between 2010 and 2018.
The bank has alleged that Kapil and Dheeraj Wadhawan, in a criminal conspiracy with others, misrepresented and concealed facts, committed a criminal breach of trust and abused public funds to cheat the consortium of Rs 34,614 crore by defaulting on loan repayments from May 2019 onwards.
An audit of DHFL's account books showed that the company allegedly committed financial irregularities, diverted funds, fabricated books and round-tripped funds to "create assets for Kapil and Dheeraj Wadhawan," using public money.
