The Enforcement Directorate on Friday arrested Amar Nath Dutta in a money laundering case involving forged loan guarantees linked to Reliance Power Ltd.
A senior ED official stated that Dutta was arrested in connection with the submission of forged Bank Guarantees (BGs) worth over Rs. 68 crore, along with fake BG endorsements and SFMS confirmations, by a Reliance Power Ltd subsidiary to the Solar Energy Corporation of India Ltd. (SECI).
He said the accused claimed to have provided consultancy services in trade financing. Dutta allegedly played an active role, along with the previously arrested Ashok Pal and Partha Sarathi Biswal, in providing the fake bank guarantee.
Dutta was produced before the Court of Additional Sessions Judge at Patiala House Courts in New Delhi, which remanded him to ED custody until November 10.
The ED initiated its PMLA investigation based on three FIRs, including one filed by SECI with the Delhi Police’s Economic Offences Wing. SECI, a public sector undertaking under the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, has suffered a loss of over Rs 100 crore due to the fraudulent BG submission.
“It may be recalled that on October 11, Ashok Kumar Pal, the then Chief Financial Officer of Reliance Power Ltd, was arrested by the ED in connection with money laundering charges in the same case. Ashok Pal’s arrest followed the arrest of his accomplice, Partha Sarthi Biswal, MD of a shell company, Biswal Tradelink Pvt. Ltd,” the ED official said.
During the investigation, the ED uncovered that forged State Bank of India endorsements were generated through a spoofed email to mislead SECI into accepting the fabricated BG as genuine. Furthermore, the probe has identified more spoofed domains of commercial banks using single-character swaps or minor textual tweaks. These spoofed domains were used by the same group of individuals.
The ED’s investigation is continuing into various aspects, including the identification of beneficiaries of the proceeds of crime, tracing the end-use of funds, locating assets acquired from the illicit money, and examining the larger conspiracy and the roles of additional persons and entities.