Bhosale Allegedly Received 'kickbacks' To Facilitate Loans From DHFL: CBI

The CBI probe in the Yes Bank-DHFL bank fraud case has brought under the scanner the role of Pune-based auto driver-turned-real estate baron Avinash Bhosale who as middleman allegedly received kickbacks of over Rs 360 crore from another real estate developer for facilitating loans from DHFL which turned into non performing assets, officials said Thursday.

The CBI has stumbled upon two payments of over Rs 68.8 crore and Rs 292 crore to arrested ABIL chairman Avinash Bhosale's companies made by Radius Developers, whose owner Sanjay Chhabaria was recently arrested in the case, they said.

Queries seeking comments from ABIL group on the allegations remained unanswered.

The payments were shown as consultancy fee and loan but the CBI alleged that these were kickbacks from Chhabaria to facilitate loans worth over Rs 2,420 crore from DHFL which were later turned into non-performing assets, they said.

The CBI for the first time is focussing alleged middlemen and secondary and tertiary level beneficiaries in a bank fraud, a novel approach in such cases where it normally used to charge bank officials and primary beneficiary with respective offences, an official claimed.

Yes Bank under Rana Kapoor had disbursed Rs 3,983 crore  to DHFL which were "proceeds of crime", the CBI had recently told a special court. 

Out of this amount, DHFL had sanctioned and disbursed loans aggregating Rs 2,420 crore to three groups concerns of Radius Group, headed by Sanjay Chhabria who was arrested by CBI recently, it had alleged.

The loans sanctioned to Radius Group concerns were siphoned off and became NPA in the books of DHFL with an outstanding liability of Rs 2,130 crore, the CBI alleged.

Bhosale, who was being investigated in Mumbai, was shifted to Delhi for further questioning in connection with alleged kickbacks to facilitate disbursal of funds from DHFL to Radius, they said.

During the searches at the premises of Bhosale, the CBI has stumbled on two boxes of documents which are being studied by the agency, the sources said.

The CBI had registered the FIR in 2020 alleging that Kapoor had entered into a criminal conspiracy with Kapil Wadhawan of DHFL for extending financial assistance to DHFL through Yes Bank in return for substantial undue benefits to himself and his family members through companies held by them, the officials said.

According to the CBI FIR, the scam started taking shape between April to June, 2018 when Yes Bank invested Rs 3,700 crore in short term debentures of scam-hit DHFL. The funds secured from Yes Bank were further circulated to other companies by DHFL. 

DHFL is already facing a separate probe for allegedly siphoning off Rs 31,000 crore out of total bank loans of Rs 97,000 crore using shell companies

In return, Wadhawan allegedly "paid kickback of Rs 600 crore" to Kapoor and family members in the form of loan to DoIT Urban Ventures (India) Pvt Ltd, they said.

DoIT Urban Ventures is held by daughters of Kapoor -- Roshini, Radha and Rakhee -- which are 100 percent shareholders of the company through Morgan Credits Pvt Ltd, it alleged.