India’s Enforcement Directorate has intensified its investigation into Reliance Anil Ambani Group, filing new chargesheets and attaching assets in a bid to curb alleged diversion of public funds and complex shell company operations linked to the conglomerate.
India’s Enforcement Directorate has intensified its money-laundering case against entities linked to the Reliance Anil Ambani Group, filing chargesheets in two separate matters that the agency says involve alleged diversion of public money, shell companies and the layering of funds through multiple entities.
In one case, the agency filed a prosecution complaint on Saturday in a special court in Dwarka against Reliance Infrastructure Limited, former group executive Sateesh Seth and others. The ED said Seth, who left the group in 2025, was arrested in June and remains in judicial custody. In the second case, the agency submitted a supplementary chargesheet in a Rouse Avenue court in proceedings involving Reliance Communications Limited and Reliance Telecom Limited, alongside former executives including Seth, Gautam Doshi and Amitabh Jhunjhunwala.
According to the ED, the Reliance Infrastructure case grew out of a February complaint by Mumbai Police’s Economic Offences Wing, which alleged that shell companies were set up and run with forged documents and bank accounts to move money through fictitious invoices tied to overstated diamond exports. The agency now says its investigation found an organised plan to divert public funds from four NHAI-awarded toll-road projects, with about Rs 187 crore allegedly siphoned off in September and October 2010 through backdated or sham subcontracting arrangements.
The toll-road projects identified by the ED were the Trichy-Karur, Trichy-Dindigul, Salem-Ulundurpet and Jaipur-Reengus stretches. The agency said money moved from Reliance Infrastructure or project-specific vehicles to contractors and then on to shell entities with no connection to road construction. It also said documents were later created to make the transfers appear to be genuine project spending. The ED has attached immovable assets and equity shares of Reliance Power Limited held by Reliance Infrastructure, along with land linked to Ksheeraabd Constructions, worth Rs 187 crore.
In the RCOM case, the ED said the chargesheet stems from multiple CBI FIRs alleging misuse of fund-based and non-fund-based credit lines by Reliance Communications, Reliance Telecom and Reliance Infratel. The agency alleges that fresh borrowing was repeatedly used to repay older domestic and overseas liabilities instead of the stated end use, with funds routed through group companies, conduit entities, bank accounts and liquid mutual funds. It says the proceeds of crime have been quantified at Rs 40,185 crore and that assets worth Rs 8,078 crore have been attached, with confiscation sought in court.
The broader case has already led to earlier enforcement action. The ED said it arrested Doshi and Seth in June, while it had also attached assets in related proceedings this year, including a January action worth Rs 1,885 crore and a February attachment of Anil Ambani’s Pali Hill residence in a separate RCOM-linked bank fraud matter. The agency said further investigation is continuing, while no immediate comment from the group or the former executives was available.
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