Kwality Fraud: ED Attaches Rs 440 Crore Assets

New Delhi, Jan 16 (PTI) The Enforcement Directorate Thursday said it has attached assets worth more than Rs 440 crore in Delhi, Haryana and Punjab as part of an alleged bank loan fraud linked money laundering case against former promoters of dairy major Kwality Ltd.

An order was issued under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) for the provisional attachment of a 12,000 square yards farmhouse located at DLF Chhatarpur, residential properties at Vasant Vihar and Punjabi Bagh in Delhi and some residential plots at Karnal (Haryana) and Mohali (Punjab), the federal agency said.

The total value of these properties is Rs 442.85 crore.

These properties were "owned" by former promoters Siddhant Gupta and Sanjay Dhingra of Kwality Limited through "dummy" companies. The driver and security guard of the said promoters were the directors in such companies, the ED said.

The agency had raided 15 locations in Delhi-NCR in November 2024 as part of the action against former promoters and directors of the company -- Sanjay Dhingra and Siddhant Gupta -- apart from some "shell" (paper) companies related to them.

Kwality has been liquidated and is now with new owners.

The ED case stems from a September, 2020 CBI FIR filed against the said promoters and Kwality, which was engaged in processing and trading of milk, ice cream and other dairy products, for alleged loan fraud of Rs 1,400 crore against a consortium of banks.

The then promoters and directors, the agency said in a statement, "fudged" the books of accounts to show higher sales and debtors.

"Huge amounts of trading (sales/ purchase) were made without actual physical deliveries or receipt of the goods at factory premises. It was also noticed that sham companies/firms operated through implanted/dummy owners were used to divert the bank funds," the ED alleged.

The funds "diverted" through the said modus operandi were circulated and layered so as to conceal their origin and routed to different accounts as per the instructions of the promoters for purposes not intended by the banks, it said.