India’s financial crime investigators have trained their sights on the once-sprawling Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (RADAG), executing raids at 35 sites as part of a sweeping probe into alleged laundering and misappropriation of public funds. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) suspects the group masterminded a complex scheme to divert ₹3,000 crore (\$350 million) in loans from YES Bank between 2017 and 2019 through a web of shell firms.
The alleged blueprint? Bribes first, loans later. Sources say RADAG entities greased the palms of YES Bank insiders to fast-track funding—sidestepping internal controls and pushing the bank’s lending norms to the brink.
Neither Reliance nor YES Bank offered a response as the news rippled through the financial world. But the markets reacted swiftly: shares of Reliance Infrastructure and Reliance Power nosedived by up to 5% following word of the crackdown.
The financial rot, according to investigators, runs deep. YES Bank’s loan book during the period under scrutiny was riddled with irregularities—credit memos backdated, loans granted to shaky companies, financials manipulated, and a troubling reliance on “evergreening,” the act of issuing fresh loans to keep toxic ones from turning nonperforming.
This isn’t Anil Ambani’s first tryst with regulatory fire. Many of his companies have been drowning in insolvency since 2017. And last year, India’s market watchdog SEBI slapped Ambani and two dozen associates with a five-year ban from trading, citing a major fund diversion at Reliance Home Finance.
Meanwhile, YES Bank itself has barely emerged from its own resurrection. Once buried in bad loans and declared insolvent in 2020, it was resuscitated by a consortium of domestic lenders. Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp is now eyeing a 20% stake, though that deal awaits regulatory blessing.
As for Rana Kapoor, YES Bank’s former poster boy turned cautionary tale—he was arrested in 2020 on fraud charges and released on bail just last year. His name still lingers in the investigation’s shadows.
For Anil Ambani, once considered one of India’s most promising tycoons, this latest probe may signal more than just a legal headache. It’s another blow to an empire whose foundations have long since begun to crumble.
