Bank-fraud case: ED arrests Kolkata-based businessman

Kolkata, Jan 17 (PTI) The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested a Kolkata-based businessman in connection with a money-laundering case linked to an alleged bank-loan fraud involving an amount of more than Rs 2,600 crore, officials said on Saturday.

Pratyush Kumar Sureka, 40, was taken into custody on Friday and sent to the ED's custody for four days by a special PMLA court, they said.

The investigation pertains to a bank-fraud case involving Shree Ganesh Jewellery House (I) Limited (SGJHIL) and its promoters over the alleged defrauding of a consortium of 25 banks to the tune of Rs 2,672 crore.

The ED case stems from a 2016 FIR lodged by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

According to the ED, its probe has revealed that during 2011-12, the company "diverted" loan funds sanctioned for its jewellery business into solar-power projects through Alex Astral Power Private Limited and its related entities.

Sureka was appointed as the joint managing director of Alex Astral Power Private Limited in April 2012.

The businessman is alleged to have fabricated board resolutions, backdated agreements, misused digital signatures and appointed dummy directors to hide his control and create false records of fraudulent transactions. Funds of Alex Astral Power Private Limited and other group companies were siphoned off through sham loans, bogus expenses and circular transactions, the ED has alleged.

The ED officials said Sureka was intercepted at the Kolkata international airport, just before he was about to board a plane to Thailand, on the basis of a Look Out Circular (LOC) issued against him on January 5. PTI NES RC