ED searches premises of telco tower firm in Rs 5k cr loan scam

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) searched around five premises of GTL Ltd (GTL Infra), a company that provides telecom towers, after registering a money laundering case on Wednesday. It is learnt that the raids were carried out on the premises of its former directors and some others under scanner at Navi Mumbai and Mumbai.

Earlier, the CBI had registered a Rs 4,760-crore bank loan fraud case against GTL Infra. The ED had registered the money laundering case based on this case.

It is alleged that GTL Infra fraudulently received various loan facilities from an lDBl Bank-led consortium and subsequently diverted/siphoned off the majority of the loan money in conspiracy with vendors and unknown bank officers.

A forensic audit of the company by the IDBI-led consortium of banks on the insistence of RBI found that GTL Infra had made substantial advance payments to a few selected vendors but purchases made were made at lesser rates between 2010-2011. GTL Infra made Rs 1,142 crore advance payment to these vendors against which it didn’t receive any material.

Instead of utilising the loan money for the company’s business activities, GTL Infra used most of it to purchase fixed assets, invested in mutual funds, shares and kept in fixed deposits. Some portion of the loan was routed back to GTL Infra by the vendors through fictitious transactions.

It is alleged that the four vendor entities were incorporated within a span of three months and their Memorandums of Association (MoA) were the same. The same corrections were made in all the MoAs, establishing that all were drafted by the same agency/source.

When TOI tried to contact GTL Infra on the landline number of its office in Navi Mumbai, the person at the other end said the office was shut. He declined to comment on the ED action.

The GTL Infrastructure Ltd (GTL Infra) website said it is a pioneer in the shared passive telecom infrastructure sector in India with a portfolio of about 26,000 towers located across all the 22 telecom circles in India. The company deploys, owns and manages telecom towers and communication structures that are shared by the wireless telecom operators.