Things seem to be getting murkier for businessman Anil Ambani, whose Reliance Group has been accused of diverting funds to the tune of ₹41,921 crore, by a leading investigative portal.
The portal levelled the allegations on Thursday, saying Ambani’s companies, including Reliance Communications, Reliance Capital, Reliance Home Finance, Reliance Commercial Finance, and Reliance Corporate Advisory Services, had been committing financial fraud since 2006.
Citing its investigations, the group claimed that about₹28,874 crore were first raised through bank loans, IPO proceeds, and bonds by the Reliance Group, and then siphoned to promoter-linked companies from listed group firms, including Reliance Communications, Reliance Capital, Reliance Home Finance, Reliance Commercial Finance, and Reliance Corporate Advisory Services.
It also alleged that an additional USD 1.535 billion (₹13,047 crore) was routed into India through offshore entities in Singapore, Mauritius, Cyprus, the British Virgin Islands, the US, and the UK, “in a fraudulent manner” using a network of subsidiaries and shell firms.
Citing violations of the Companies Act, FEMA, PMLA, SEBI Act, and Income Tax Act, the investigating portal said its findings are based on filings and orders from the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, SEBI, NCLT, RBI, and foreign jurisdictions.
A Singapore-based company, Emerging Market Investments & Trading Pte (EMITS), received USD 750 million from a “mysterious benefactor” named NexGen Capital, said the portal, which later transferred the amount to Reliance Innoventures, the Reliance Group’s holding company. This “benefactor” company was then dissolved, thereby involving a transaction that “could amount to money laundering”.
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The portal also alleged misuse of corporate funds for personal luxury purchases, including a USD 20 million yacht that Anil Ambani bought in 2008 through a listed group company.
The investigation claims ADA Group firms used dozens of pass-through entities and SPVs to divert funds, which were later written off, leaving all six key listed companies in financial distress.
The portal pegs the total diversion – including domestic and foreign frauds – to have exceeded ₹41,921 crore, routed via “dozens of pass-through entities, subsidiaries, shell companies and offshore vehicles” across the British Virgin Islands, Cyprus, Mauritius, Singapore, the US and the UK.
The portal’s editor, Aniruddha Bahal, said the probe drew on official filings and court orders from agencies, including the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, SEBI, NCLT, and RBI, and alleged “total erosion of public wealth” of ₹3.38 lakh crore, including losses in market capitalisation and bad loans.
The Reliance Group has dismissed the report as a “recycled, agenda-driven corporate hit job by a dead platform resurrected by entities with direct commercial interest to acquire the group’s assets”. It did not, however, name who these “entities” were.
Condemning the report as “a malicious campaign to tarnish its reputation and mislead stakeholders”, it said the allegations were based on “old, publicly available information already examined by the CBI, ED, SEBI and other agencies”.
This was “an organised attempt to prejudice a fair trial”, it said.
The group also described the portal as “a dead platform resurrected as a corporate hit-job” with “zero journalistic credibility and a 100 per cent track record of agenda-driven stings”.
The group also alleged that the publication was “a deliberate campaign of calumny, disinformation, and character assassination of Reliance Group, Anil Ambani and 55 lakh shareholders aimed at crashing the stock prices, and engineering panic in stock markets to acquire Reliance Group assets”.
Its listed firms, Reliance Infrastructure Ltd and Reliance Power Ltd, have also filed complaints with SEBI seeking a probe into recent trading patterns in their shares.
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