ED arrests Cox & King promoter, Peter Kerkar in money laundering case

New Delhi, Nov 27: The Enforcement Directorate has arrested Ajay Peter Kerkar, the promoter of Cox and Kings, in connection with a money-laundering probe.

The firm owes Rs 5,500 crore to banks and financial institutions. It is one of the top borrowers of Yes Bank, when co-founder Rana Kapoor was at the hemp. Yes Bank has an exposure of more than Rs 2,267 crore to Cox & Kings group.

Kerkar alias Ajay Ajit Peter was arrested in Mumbai under various sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and will be produced before a court there on Friday.

The case relates to ED's money laundering probe in which the central probe agency had said that Yes Bank had a total outstanding of Rs 3,642 crore against Cox & Kings Group of Companies (CKG).

The role of Kerkar is under probe with regard to alleged loan defaults with a number of banks including the Yes Bank, official sources said.

The agency had raided a number to former executives of the beleaguered tours and travel services firm along with Kerkar in June as part of multiple searches conducted by it in Mumbai.

It has also arrested its ex-chief financial officer Anil Khandelwal and internal auditor Naresh Jain in October in this case.

The company at present is undergoing corporate insolvency resolution process.

The ED had alleged Khandelwal and Jain had "purchased various immovable properties from the funds diverted from Cox & Kings Group (CKG)."

"CKG forged its consolidated financials by manipulating the balance sheets of overseas subsidiaries. In addition, some board resolutions submitted to banks for sanctioning the loans were also found to be forged," the ED had claimed.

Probe revealed that the loan sanction from Yes bank was driven by the then CMD Rana Kapoor and was given "bypassing" the norms, it said.

"ED gathered the evidence regarding clear instruction of Rana Kapoor to the concerned bank officials to get the said loan continued and not to take efforts to recover it," it alleged.

"During financial year 2015-2019, sales of Rs 3,908 crore was made to 15 non-existent/fictitious customers," the ED had said after it arrested the two.

It had said Cox & King Limited "diverted Rs 1,100 crore to another stressed company without any approval of board which has no business relationship with the company."
Yes Bank co-promoter Rana Kapoor and DHFL promoters Kapil Wadhawan and Dheeraj Wadhawan have been arrested in this case by the ED early this year.

It had booked Kapoor, his family members and others under the PMLA after studying a CBI FIR that alleged that dubious multi-crore loans were given by Yes Bank to various entities in contravention of the law and in lieu of purported kickbacks given to the Kapoor family.