Vijay Mallya in ED crosshairs over illegal jet usage

Mumbai: In its money-laundering probe against fugitive liquor baron Vijay Mallya and his firms, accused of defaulting bank loans, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has taken under its scanner few instances of their alleged diversion of the loan sum for activities including the lease of a corporate jet. The corporate jet was hired for VVIP tourism for generating surplus, but allegedly not used for the same, said ED sources.

“One Mallya firm had acquired the jet for non-scheduled air transport services operations on the grounds that it will be used by him and senior employees of the firm for VVIP tourism and chartered trips to various global destinations,” said an ED source. “However, the jet was never used for this purpose and rather was mainly used as a personal carrier by the accused, his family and friends,” the source said. For the purpose of payments toward the rental lease of the jet, funds of around Rs 45 crore were allegedly diverted, the ED probe shows.

The ED on Monday filed its second charge sheet against Mallya and his firms on alleged charges of money laundering and duping a consortium of nationalised banks to the tune of Rs 6,027 crore. ED is now likely to seek permission from the court to “confiscate” more than Rs 9,000 crore worth assets of the beleaguered businessman and his firms under the recently promulgated Fugitive Econ-omic Offenders Ordi-nance. The probe in the case was based on a CBI FIR, that was registered after receiving State Bank of India (SBI) complaints on behalf of the consortium of banks for causing loss of Rs 6,027 crore.The ED suspects that amounts were allegedly siphoned off by way of over-invoicing and were paid to the rental firm in excess to other  aircraft.