Yes Bank Founder Rana Kapoor Arrested On Charges Of Money Laundering

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Sunday, March 8, arrested former Chairman and founder of Yes Bank Rana Kapoor on charges of money laundering.

His arrest comes after an intense 15-hour interrogation following which he was accused of receiving payments from various corporate entities on disbursal of loans.

The ED conducted searches at residences of his three daughters in Delhi and Mumbai also interrogation his wife.

The ED has alleged that Kapoor received a hefty amount of ₹600 crores from Dewan Housing Finance Limited (DHFL) in one of the family investments in exchange for the bankrupt company not repaying its loans. The bank's debt exposure to DHFL was to the tune of ₹3,700 crore between April 2018 to July 2018.

The ED is also investigating the loan documents of the private lender and the terms on which it approved ₹750 crores to Dheeraj Wadhawan's RKW Developers for a project near Mumbai's Bandra.

Rana is also under the ED's radar in connection with the ₹4,100 crore employees' provident fund scam concerning the Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation Ltd (UPPCL).

Rana ran country's fourth-largest lender unless he was forced to step down by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in 2019. A former Bank of America executive, Rana was once India's second-richest self-made banker who shared an 11 per cent stake in Yes Bank.

It was, however, looking for an infusion of funds for more than a year.

To prevent a systematic crisis due to the crisis at Yes Bank, the RBI dissolved the bank management and asked the State Bank of India (SBI) to take a 49% stake in the private lender. The central bank is also planning a special ₹10,000-crore window for the private bank.

The central bank has put a limit of ₹50,000 on withdrawals for bank's customers across all their accounts till April 3.

As per the new conditions placed on SBI, it is not allowed to cut its stake to less than 26% before completion of 3 years.

The state-owned bank is also not permitted to terminate any Yes Bank staff for at least a year unless they are the key management personnel.

SBI Chairman, Rajnish Kumar, has claimed that it will deal with Yes Bank at an arm's length basis and that there was no proposal to merge the two.

Also Read: SBI May Invest Rs 2450 crore To Revive Cash Strapped Yes Bank