HYDERABAD: The Enforcement Directorate (ED), Hyderabad Zone has provisionally attached assets valued at Rs 71.61 crore in connection with a bank fraud case.
The assets, which include both movable and immovable properties, have a book value of Rs 19.11 crore and belong to Nerella Venkata Rama Mohan Rao and others, who are the accused in a case involving fraudulent Kisan Credit Card (KCC) fish tank loans from IDBI Bank.
The attached properties are registered in the names of aggregators, their family members, and benamis. These assets comprise agricultural lands, commercial sites and plots located in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, along with a bank account balance of Rs 15.55 lakh.
The ED’s investigation began following an FIR lodged by the CBI, Visakhapatnam, under various Sections of the IPC and the Prevention of Corruption Act. The FIR named Nerella Venkata Rama Mohan Rao and 10 others for fraudulently availing KCC fish tank loans in the names of 350 borrowers from IDBI Bank’s Rajahmundry branch, amounting to Rs 311.05 crore.
The ED revealed that Nerella Venkata Rama Mohan Rao, along with Badigantla Srinivasa Rao, Bandi Narayana Rao, Gidugu Satya Nagendra Srinivasa Rao, Karri Gandhi, Manepalli Surya Manikyam, Manepalli Suryanarayana Gupta, RV Chandramouli Prasad, Goluguri Rama Krishna Reddy, Vanapalli Narayana Rao and Vanapalli Pallaiah, acted as ‘aggregators’ for the KCC fish tank loans. They were the ultimate beneficiaries of the fraudulent loans sanctioned based on fabricated documents, the ED said. The loans were primarily issued in the names of their employees, relatives, benamis, and farmers who were not eligible for such loans.
The ED said that the value of collateral securities offered against the loans was significantly inflated in collusion with property valuers.
The loan amounts were diverted from the borrowers’ accounts to the aggregators through cash withdrawals and bank transfers, as directed by the aggregators.
The diverted funds were used by the aggregators to acquire immovable properties in their names and those of their family members and benamis, the ED said.