But amount returned is just over a third of the total Rs 40,000 crore involved in these frauds.
Assets worth over Rs 15,000 crore have been confiscated in 19 cases involving fugitive economic offenders such as Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi and have been returned to public sector banks. This, however, amounts to just a little more than a third of the Rs 40,000 crore of funds involved in these frauds.
The information was provided by Minister of State of Finance Pankaj Chaudhury in Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.
“As on date, the enforcement directorate has filed applications under the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act, 2018 (FEOA), against 19 persons. Out of which 10 persons namely Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi, Nitin Jayantilal Sandesara, Chetan Jayantilal Sandesara, Dipti Chetan Jayantilal Sandesara, Hitesh Kumar Narendrabhai Patel, Junaid Iqbal Memon, Hajra Iqbal Memon, Asif Iqbal Memon and Ramachandran Vishwanathan have been declared as Fugitive Economic Offenders (FEOs) by the Competent Courts,” he said in response to a question on action against economic offenders.
The amount of fraud involved in these cases is more than Rs 40,000 crore, he added. “As on date, assets amounting to Rs 15,113.02 crore have been confiscated under PMLA and restituted to public sector banks. Furthermore, assets amounting to Rs 873.75 crore have also been confiscated under FEOA in respect of the said FEOs,” the minister said.
As many as four economic offenders have been deported or extradited to India by Enforcement Directorate so far.
Wilful defaulters:
Meanwhile, Gitanjali Gems, owned by fugitive diamond billionaire Nirav Modi’s uncle Mehul Choksi, is the top wilful defaulter to scheduled commercial banks. Gitanjali Gems owes Rs 8,738 crore to banks as on March 31, 2023.
In all, the top 50 wilful defaulters owe Rs 87,295 crore to scheduled commercial banks (SCBs) as on March 31 this year. The information was provided by MoS Finance Bhagwat Karad in response to another question in Rajya Sabha.
“SCBs have written-off an aggregate amount of Rs. 10,57,326 crore during the last five financial years (RBI provisional data for FY 2022-23),” he said in response to a question on wilful defaulters.
Other top wilful defaulters include Era Infra Engineering owing Rs 5,750 crore, REI Agro owing Rs 5,148 crore, ABG Shipyard owing Rs 4,774 crore and Concast Steel and Power owing Rs 3,911 crore to SCBs.
Further, Rotomac Global Private owes Rs 2,894 crore, Winsome Diamonds and Jewellery owes Rs 2,846 crore, Frost International owes Rs 2,518 crore, Shri Lakshmi Cotsyn owes Rs 2,180 crore and Zoom Developers Private owes Rs 2,066 crore to these banks.
