Anil, the younger sibling of Asia’s richest person Mukesh Ambani, has business interests ranging from power to defence but has seen his fortunes wane over the last two decades. In recent months, the industrialist has attracted law enforcement scrutiny with investigators probing alleged crimes ranging from diversion of bank loans to money laundering.
On Monday evening, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) said it had frozen assets worth more than 75 billion rupees, including office premises, residential units and over 132 acres (53 hectares) of land as part of its investigation. The agency said it had “detected fraudulent diversion of public money by various Reliance Anil Ambani group companies” and that it was “committed to restituting” the proceeds of these crimes to “their rightful claimants”.