The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has recovered and seized gold and diamond jewellery worth Rs 2.72 crore, Rs 41 lakh cash, four high end cars, digital devices and various incriminating documents during searches at 10 places in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad in a money laundering case related to bank fraud in Seva Vikas Cooperative Bank.

Searches were conducted at the residences and offices of Amar Mulchandani, former Chairman of Seva Vikas Co-operative Bank, addresses linked to Vinay Aranha of Rosary School, Pune and Sagar Suryawanshi who have benefitted from this scam, the ED said in a statement.

ED initiated investigation under Prevention of Money Laundering Act based on the predicate FIR registered at Vimantal police station in Pune against Vinay Aranha of Rosary Education Group and others for loan fraud.

Subsequently, the Joint Registrar (Audit) conducted an audit of the entire Seva Vikas Cooperative Bank and found gross fraud and misappropriation of Rs 429.6 crore spread across 126 NPA Loan accounts.

“Board of Directors led by Amar Mulchandani had violated all Banking norms and deliberately sanctioned loans to ineligible / shell entities to siphon off the funds. Based on this audit report, additional multiple FIRs were registered against the loan beneficiaries and bank management including its former Chairman Amar Mulchandani. Subsequently, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has cancelled the licence of the bank.         

The ED started searches at 10 locations on January 27, 2023. At the residence of Mulchandani, the ED team accompanied by Bank officials and CRPF faced stiff resistance.

The ED team was given to understand that Amar Mulchandani was absent, and his other five family members tried to mislead the search team.

“All the family members as part of a well planned conspiracy had obstructed the lawful search of ED and this time was used by Amar Mulchandani to erase his phones to destroy evidence. It was subsequently found that Mulchandani was hiding in a room locked from inside at the same premises,” it said.

As a result, on the complaint of ED, local police booked all the six residents under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and all of them have been arrested by the Police on the conclusion of the search proceedings of ED. They have been remanded to the jail, it added.