Bank fraud case: ED raids pharma company, promoters in money laundering probe

The Enforcement Directorate on Friday carried out raids at multiple premises of Chandigarh-based pharmaceutical company Parabolic Drugs and its promoters as part of a money laundering investigation linked to an alleged bank loan fraud case, official sources said.

The searches by the central agency covered a total of 17 premises in Delhi, Mumbai, Chandigarh and Panchkula and Ambala in Haryana, they said.

The action is being undertaken under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and the ED case stems from a 2021 CBI FIR against the company and its promoters Vineet Gupta and Pranav Gupta among others, the sources said.

The agency, as per the sources, is also looking at some documents from Sonepat-based Ashoka University as two directors of the company, Vineet Gupta and Pranav Gupta, have been associated with the educational institution in the past. The two had stepped down from all the boards and committees of the university in 2022, days after the CBI action.

The institute had then denied any link to the case.

The CBI had booked the top executives of the company in December, 2021 for allegedly defrauding a consortium led by Central Bank of India of Rs 1626.74 crore. It had subsequently raided their premises also.

Besides company’s Managing Director Paranav Gupta, the CBI booked company directors Vineet Gupta, Deepali Gupta, Rama Gupta, Jagjit Singh Chahal, Sanjeev Kumar, Vandana Singla, Ishrat Gill, and its guarantors TN Goyal and Nirmal Bansal, and one J D Gupta.

The university had then said that it has nothing to do with the CBI probe involving Parabolic Drugs Limited and its directors, and any attempt to create a link is ”frivolous and misleading”.

According to CBI officials, the private company was engaged in manufacturing drugs and allegedly defrauded the consortium of banks through criminal conspiracy and forgery, and funnelled loans it took for other uses.