The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has summoned businessman Anil Ambani to appear for questioning on August 5, 2025, in an ongoing investigation into a massive loan fraud and money laundering case related to rupees 3,000-plus crore dispersed by the Yes Bank to companies of the Reliance Group.
As part of a money laundering investigation into an alleged Rs 3,000 crore bank loan fraud involving companies of the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) summoned the industrialist a week after conducting searches at more than 35 locations in Mumbai connected to Anil Ambani.
This case, which originally was focused on alleged financial irregularities related to Reliance Home Finance Ltd and Reliance Commercial Finance Ltd, has now expanded into alleged systemic lapses in financial oversight, governance failures, and questionable inter-corporate transactions within the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG).
Among other things, the central agency’s investigation has discovered purported infractions in Yes Bank’s loan approvals to the group’s businesses, such as backdated credit approval memorandums and investment offers made without any credit analysis or due diligence.
Web of loans with suspected diversions
According to the ED, the loans granted by Yes Bank between 2017 and 2019 to ADAG companies were possibly misused through a network of related firms and shell companies. These investigators reportedly suspect that certain loans were disbursed on the basis of insufficient or backdated documentation, without adequate proof of a legitimate end use.
In recent raids across 35 locations relating to Ambani’s business network, irregularities in the actual flow of funds were allegedly discovered that pointed to a sinister choreography involving the use of an intermediary entity to obfuscate the ultimate beneficiaries. Ambani has distanced himself in the past from day-to-day operations of some of the companies under investigation, but the ED is now interested in determining whether those at the top held any active responsibilities when the funds began to allegedly disappear.
From Corporate Defaults to Criminal Investigations
The case has graduated from being a corporate debt problem to a full-fledged criminal investigation. What started with unpaid loans and defaults is now being scrutinized under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), with inputs from the CBI and SEBI.
The investigation has also grown to incorporate a larger ₹17,000 crore fraud probe, with various companies linked to Reliance facing questions for failing to disclose inter-corporate transactions amounting to thousands of crores.
SEBI drawing attention to violations in financial reporting and transparency has put greater pressure on ADAG companies. These developments have raised concerns regarding corporate governance and protection of investors in the Indian corporate scenario.
Market Impact and Corporate Response
Reliance Infrastructure and Reliance Power shares crashed by almost 10% over two days, reflecting battered investor sentiment amidst regulatory heat. The two companies released a public statement claiming that the ED raids were over and that their business was unaffected. However, damage to reputation would take much longer to mend.
Ambani’s impending summons by the ED shines the light once again on corporate accountability at the highest level and the need for systemic reforms to deal with the institutional abuse of lending in India. For diverting funds from RHFL, Anil Ambani and 24 other businesses, including former top managers, were barred from the securities market by SEBI last year for a period of five years.
For allegedly masterminding a fraudulent scheme that hurt RHFL’s stakeholders and undermined trust in the integrity of governance systems in regulated financial sector companies, SEBI additionally fined Anil Ambani Rs 25 crore. Anil Ambani and the other 24 entities have been hit with penalties totaling more than Rs 625 crore.
