New Delhi (30 October, 2025): An investigation by Cobrapost  has unearthed a massive financial fraud amounting to more than Rs. 28,874 crore that the Reliance Anil Dhuribabhi Ambani Group, or ADA Group, owned by Anil Ambani and his family members, has indulged in since 2006. The fraud involves siphoning off funds from  six major listed ADA Group companies. These companies are Reliance Infrastructure Ltd., Reliance Capital Ltd., Reliance Communication Ltd., Reliance Home Finance Ltd., Reliance Commercial Finance Ltd., and Reliance Corporate Advisory Services Ltd. The source of the funds were bank loans, IPO money, and money raised from bonds.

Our investigation is based on a thorough analysis of multiple official and public third-party sources. These include statutory orders, regulatory filings and documents published by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), and the Reserve Bank of India; court orders; and information available in public domain.

In addition to the fraudulent diversion, about US$ 1.53 billion raised abroad was routed to India using dodgy methods. This includes US$ 750 million Emerging Market Investments & Trading Pte of Singapore (EMITS) received during a custody arrangement of EMITS with Reliance Innoventure. The entire sum of US$ 750 million was routed to India from EMITS after which it was dissolved. Also, the subsidiaries through which diversion of funds was effected to Reliance Innoventure, the holding company of the ADA Group, were dissolved. This way both the entire foreign exchange remittance and the entities involved in the fund diversion were made to disappear. This exercise can potentially classify as money laundering.

The modus operandi, as the findings of the Cobrapost investigation reveal, ADAG  companies deployed included the use of dozens of pass-through entities, called Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs), subsidiaries, shell companies or offshore entities based in the British Virgin Islands (BVI), Cyprus, Mauritius, the United States, the United Kingdom  and Singapore, to route funds to Reliance Innoventure, the main holding company of the group.

This was done by way of granting loans to subsidiaries and allotment of debentures and preference shares and siphoning off those funds using SPVs or  shell entities and then writing off the loans. This way the ADA Group companies siphoned off Rs. 28,874 crore, even as US$ 1.53 billion was diverted to India in suspicious transactions. Almost all of the offshore funds which landed in the ADA Group entities were raised in external commercial borrowings. The value of US$ 1.53 billion thus diverted stands at Rs. 13,047.50 crore in Indian currency at an average exchange rate of Rs. 85 against one dollar. Put together, along with the siphoned off amounts, the sum stands at more than Rs. 41,921.57 crore.

To begin with, there was much media hype when Anil Ambani bought a luxury yacht from Italy in December 2008 at an estimated price of US$ 20 million. However, funds for the acquisition of this luxury were diverted from Reliance Communication. An elaborate plan was put in place for this prized acquisition which our investigation reveals in all its shocking details.

There are many such instances of diversion of funds which the Cobrapost investigation has catalogued. The companies involved are Reliance Communication, Reliance Capital, Reliance Home Finance Ltd., Reliance Commercial Finance Ltd., and Reliance Corporate Advisory Services Ltd. We have identified dozens of subsidiaries and shell entities, which are involved in this fraud.           

Here is a summary of the findings of our investigation:

• In one of the first instances of fraudulent diversion of funds, which goes as far back as 2008 Anil Ambani bought a luxury yacht for his spouse. The yacht was bought for about US$ 20 million from abroad through Reliance Transport & Travels Pvt. Ltd., an ADA Group subsidiary. This was done in a circuitous manner with layers added at each step to camouflage the diversion of the fund. 

The modus operandi deployed for the acquisition was as follows:

• First, the yacht was chartered through a Jersey-based company, Ammolite Holdings Limited, for US$ 4,00,000. In the second step, funds were moved from Reliance Communication to Reliance Transport & Travels for a complete buyout. In the third step, funds were moved to Ferretti SPA of Italy on the instruction of Ammolite Holdings. In the final step, all investments in Ammolite Holdings were written off.
• However, the funds were diverted from RCom in the form of a loan to Reliance Transport & Travels through Gateway Net Trading for the purchase of 10 million handsets. Ammolite Holdings was supposed to supply these handsets, though it had no experience to play a trader.
• Instead, the entire fund was used to acquire the yacht from Ferretti SPA of Italy.
• After the acquisition was complete, Reliance Capital which owned a 50 percent stake in Ammolite Holdings, wrote off the equity investment it had made in Ammolite Holdings.

• In another similar instance, Reliance Infrastructure, along with Reliance Capital, Reliance Home Finance, and Reliance Commercial Finance, diverted Rs. 14,529.18 crore to both offshore and Indian entities. The funds were funnelled back to ADA Group promoter companies though Edico Ventures, a promoter-group company, after which the entities involved were merged.

Here is how the funds were moved:

• A special purpose vehicle by the name of CLE Pvt. Ltd. was created for fund extraction from Reliance Infrastructure, Reliance Capital, Reliance Home Finance and Reliance Commercial Finance in the form of debentures.
• CLE Pvt. Ltd. changed its name at least half a dozen times to camouflage the fraudulent diversion of funds and the ultimate beneficiary or recipient of the diverted funds.
• Rs. 10,049 crore was sourced from Reliance Infrastructure, while Reliance Capital and Reliance Commercial Finance contributed, respectively, Rs. 3270 crore and Rs. 286 crore. The rest Rs. 800 crore was sourced from Yes Bank.
• After the extraction of these funds into CLE Pvt. Ltd., they were diverted in the form of debentures and advances to promoter linked and shell entities at a huge premium.
• From these entities funds were moved abroad and to other domestic companies.
• Subsequently, after diversion of funds these entities were merged with a company called Edico Ventures to obscure the trail.
• Cobrapost has also identified 26 offshore entities which are among the beneficiary companies and to some of which funds were remitted by ADAG shell companies. The locations of at least 14 of these 26 offshore shell entities have also been found:

Tanzanite Holdings Limited, Batiste Unlimited, Radium Unlimited, and Hui Investment Unlimited are located in Jersey, an island among the British Virgin Islands;

• Reindeer Holdings Limited, Atthery Assets Limited, Tonite Holdings Limited, Lawson Investing Limited, and Reliance Infra Projects International Limited are located in the British Virgin Islands;
• AAA Enterprises and Ventures, Ikosel investments Limited, Kemigton Enterprises Limited, karhula  Enterprises Limited, and Dornsen investments Limited are located in Cyprus.
• These shell entities received monies from ADA Group companies like Edico Ventures, Reliance Innoventure, and Reliance Inceptum, among others.

• The details of diversion of funds by Reliance Home Finance Ltd., Reliance Commercial Finance Ltd., and Corporate Advisory Services, all subsidiaries of Reliance Capital, are provided next: 

• Reliance Home Finance Ltd. siphoned off Rs. 7965 crore by advancing loans to 49 entities.

• The entire loaned sum of Rs. 7965 crore found its way back into the coffers of 14 ADA Group companies owned by Anil Ambani and his family members, the ultimate beneficiaries of this fraud.
• The source of these diverted funds disbursed to 49 entities was loans the company had secured from various public sector banks.
• These loans became non-performing assets and the company was acquired by Authum Investment & Infrastructure Ltd. through the CIRP process before the NCLT, which has started invoking securities to recover those loans. This should have been done by the lender banks in the first place. 

• Reliance Commercial Finance Limited diverted Rs. 4979.89 crore in a similar manner.

• These funds were diverted through 27 entities in the form of loans.
• Many of these companies had also received loans from Reliance Home Finance.
• These funds were then routed to promoter-group companies directly or through intermediary entities. 

• Reliance Corporate Advisory Services diverted Rs. 1400 crore through inter-corporate loans which carried no interest.

• Loans were advanced from holding company Reliance Capital to Reliance Corporate Advisory Services.
• Reliance Corporate Advisory Services used these borrowed funds to grant loans downstream or make investment in various companies to finally plough back the money in companies personally controlled by ADA Group promoters.
• In most cases, the loan was granted to promoter-group companies of various groups like Yes Bank (Rana Kapur), with prime focus on Vasu Bhagnani, Indiabulls, and Wadhawan-controlled DHFL, among others.
• In consideration of these loans and investments, the promoter of ADA Group received kickbacks in Anil Ambani’s personally controlled companies from these recipient companies. These transactions are part of the ongoing ED probe.
• The value of transactions involved is Rs. 1400 crore. This was typically an exercise in siphoning off the funds from the company and hiding the blatant fraud from regulatory agencies, auditors and stakeholders to avoid the scrutiny for related party transactions. 

• Cobropost investigation further shows that Reliance Home Finance and Reliance Commercial Finance together extended a sum of Rs. 288 crore in loan/investment to Wadhawan Holdings, a company owned by Wadhawan brothers of Dewan Housing Finance Ltd. In turn, loans worth Rs. 1285 crore were secured in seven of the personally controlled companies of Anil Ambani. The loans were never repaid.
• Cobrapost has also unearthed activities which potentially classify as money laundering under the PMLA. Some of them are also in contravention of FEMA. The ADA Group companies have been found indulging in such activities since 2006, resulting in diversion of US$ 1.53 billion to India in an unlawful manner.
• As already mentioned in the beginning, US$ 750 million was routed to India for the still-born Dadari power project. A multilayered web of companies was created around 2007 by the ADA Group for the purpose which makes it a case of potential money laundering. This is what we found:

• This was done through a company called Reliance Projects Pte Limited, set up in Singapore on July 26, 2006 by one NG Der Sian, while it was in a custody arrangement with Reliance Innoventure.
• Reliance Projects Pte Limited was rechristened Emerging Market Investments & Trading Pte (EMITS) and its shares were given in custody to Reliance Innoventure Pvt. Ltd.. The ownership was supposed to be transferred to Emerging Market Investment & Trading Unlimited (EMITU), a BVI-based company.
• In December 2007, EMITS received a tidy sum of US$ 750 million.
• The entire fund was invested in compulsory convertible preference shares of AAA & Sons Enterprises Pvt. Ltd., a ADA Group entity, on December 17, 2007. The funds were downstreamed the same day to AAA Facilities Solutions Pvt. Ltd. only to be further downstreamed to four more entities – AAA Communication Pvt. Ltd., AAA Enterprises Pvt. Ltd., AAA Power Systems Global Limited, and AAA Project Ventures Pvt. Ltd..
• These four companies were later on merged with Reliance Innoventure, the holding company of the ADA Group, between 2008–09 and 2009–10, to cover the tracks.
• In a nutshell, EMITS  which received US$ 750 million and the subsidiaries through which the funds were moved to Reliance Innoventure were made to disappear.
• So, we have an abnormal case where the remitter of the money, which is EMITS, has been dissolved. Also, the ADA Group companies where the money landed have been dissolved. Only the ultimate beneficiary, which is Reliance Innoventure, exists.      

• Similarly, two massive fund diversions worth US$ 575 million were carried out Reliance Infrastructure in 2006. These funds were part of external commercial borrowings which the company had raised abroad for its still-born Dadari power project. These diversions were done in contravention of both FEMA. The modus operandi was almost the same as deployed before. Here is what our investigation has found:

• On October 17, 2006, Reliance Infrastructure diverted to India US$ 275 million of US$ 300 million it had raised in external commercial borrowing. The funds were invested as liquid funds in Reliance Mutual Fund only to be transferred abroad to Reliance Natural Resources (Singapore) Pte Limited and written off.
• Another big tranche of US$ 300 million was diverted to India in a similar manner by Reliance Infrastructure. This was part of out of US$ 360 million the company had raised in external commercial borrowings. After fund was diverted to India,  it was deployed again as liquid funds in Reliance Mutual Fund in November 2006. The fund was later siphoned off to Gourock Ventures, a company based in the British Virgin Islands.
• The remaining US$ 60 million of the external borrowings was directly diverted to Gourock Ventures.
• Another tranche of US$ 150 million raised in external commercial borrowing was also diverted to India. This was meant for a delsulphurization process supposedly to be conducted at another power plant. The RBI rejected a petition for the compounding of offence under FEMA against this transaction.  
• This way US$ 1535 million landed in the above-mentioned ADA Group companies in a fraudulent manner.  

Apparently, all these acts are not only ingenuous in their meticulous implementation but also audacious in their magnitude and brazen frequency.

Here some examples to illustrate how the funds were diverted.

Example 1: The following table provides the details of the fund diversion for which CLE Pvt. Ltd. was used as a special purpose vehicle:

Our investigation has identified the following 26 entities which were used as conduits for the diversion of funds:

After the diversion of the funds, 25 of these companies were merged with six ADA Group companies.

Example 2: Here are the details of funds diverted from Reliance Home Finance Ltd.

Example 3: Reliance Commercial Finance Limited (RCFL), a subsidiary of Reliance Capital, diverted funds to the tune of Rs. 4979.89 crore, through 27 entities listed in the following table. These funds were diverted to the promoter group companies in the form of loans.

The ADA Group companies and their key management personnel have committed the fraud in flagrant violation of various laws of the land such as the Companies Act of 2013, Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) Act, and the Income Tax Act, among others.

EROSION OF PUBLIC WEALTH:

As illustrated in the table below, nine major companies of the crisis-hit group, namely, Reliance Communication (RCOM), Reliance Naval, Reliance Capital, Reliance Power, Reliance Home Finance, and Reliance Infrastructure, have together piled up a staggering sum of Rs. 1,78,491 crore in unpaid loans secured largely from public sector banks and investors. The NCLT has put all the companies under the hammer as part of debt resolution which has led to the banks taking a huge loss amounting to Rs. 1,62,976 crore. While the banks lost as much in unpaid dues, the total loss to investors is estimated to be Rs. 1,00,000 crore.

Details – derived from the NCLT filings by aggrieved banks – of the total debt/claim accumulated by nine major companies of Anil Ambani-owned ADA Group are provided here:

   Our investigation underlines not only the failure of regulatory bodies, including the Reserve Bank of India and the SEBI, but also the failure of law enforcement agencies such the Enforcement Directorate, the Central Bureau of Investigation, and Serious Fraud Investigation Office of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. All these agencies rather chose to twiddle their thumb.

The lending banks too failed to act decisively and invoke guarantees to recover their dues, even as all major ADA Group companies kept on piling public debt. Their failure to act is spectacular in the sense that they chose to turn a Nelson's eye even Anil Ambani's companies had begun to bleed by 2016 and defaulting on repayment of loans. It took the banks almost a decade to declare Anil Ambani and his companies a willful defaulter the RBI's 2013 Master Circular notwithstanding. An essential element of the RBI circular defines who is a willful defaulter is siphoning off funds and fraudulent transactions. Whatever action certain banks are taking off late is too little too late.

We had sent a detailed questionnaire to Mr. Anil Ambani and his son Jai Anmol with regard to the findings of our investigation on October 19, 2025, so that we could have their version and include the same in the story. The questionnaire was followed up with a reminder on October 24 and final reminder on October 27. Rather answers to those question, we have received from their counsel a "Legal Notice of Defamation (including inter alia under Section 356 of the Bharatiya Nayay Samhita, 2023) and Interference with the Administration of Justice, amounting to Contempt of Court under the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971).

In the notice, Reliance Infrastructure Limited and Mr. Anil D. Ambani, through their legal counsel, have categorically denied all allegations made in the Cobrapost investigation and described the claims made in the report as false, baseless and defamatory. The Group maintains that no court or tribunal has found them or any Reliance ADA Group entity guilty of any offence or financial wrongdoing.

The Group has asserted that Cobrapost’s publication of this story and the scheduled press conference amount to a “trial by media” on matters that are currently pending before competent authorities, including the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)and the Enforcement Directorate (ED). They contend that such public characterisation of unresolved judicial proceedings would interfere with the administration of justice, violate the constitutional presumption of innocence, and could constitute contempt of court. The ADA Group further emphasised that all underlying documents are publicly available, and that selective reproduction of such records serves no genuine public interest. The Group maintains that the Cobrapost report distorts the judicial process, substituting media perception for due legal adjudication.

The notice further accuses Cobrapost of engaging in a malicious and sensationalised campaign, arguing that the questionnaire sent to the ADA Group and the publicity material released in the run-up to the story used accusatory language such as “fraudulent diversion of funds” and “money laundering,” which were presented as established facts rather than questions or fair reportage. It also alleges that the proposed publication is motivated by mala fides, designed to damage the business reputation of Mr. Ambani and the ADA Group, and may amount to criminal intimidation and extortion.

In its factual rebuttals, the Group states that:

• The Corporate Insolvency Resolution Processes (CIRPs) of certain Reliance ADAG entities were lawfully resolved by the NCLT, Mumbai, with approval from creditors including public-sector banks, and remain valid and effective.
• Reliance Infrastructure Ltd. and Reliance Power Ltd. were never under CIRP, contrary to the claims attributed to Cobrapost.
• The stress resolutions of Reliance Commercial Finance Ltd. and Reliance Home Finance Ltd. were conducted under the RBI’s Prudential Framework for Resolution of Stressed Assets (2019), approved by the RBI, relevant lenders, and the Supreme Court, resulting in substantial recoveries for creditors.

Those who wish to see the content of the notice, they may find the link in the story that will be published on our website cobrapost.com after the press conference.

This is first part of the series titled "Lootwallahs: How Indian Business is Robbing Indians".

In order to access the full story, and all other stories that our investigative teams have done in the past, please log on to www.cobrapost.com