DHFL’s Rs 31,000 Crore Scam Exposed By Cobra Post: 9 Things You Should Know

News website Cobrapost, which is fairly popular for carrying sting operations, have revealed what they call as India’s biggest financial scam.

Dewan Housing Finance Corporation or DHFL is in the centre of this controversy, as they have been accused of ‘siphoning off’ more than Rs 31,000 crore of public money.

As per the press release, the sting had these eminent personalities in the panel: Cobrapost editor Aniruddha Bahal, BJP leader Yashwant Sinha, lawyer Prashant Bhushan, IT professional and former AAP member Neil Terrence, journalists Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, and Prem Shankar Jha.

Here are 9 main pointers you should know:

• DHFL is a Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFC), which provides housing loans to consumers. As per the allegations of Cobra Post, DHFL siphoned off Rs 31,000 crore to various shell companies across the world.
• Cobra Post alleges that this is India’s biggest financial scam, and both secured and unsecured loans were given to shell companies. Besides this, round tripping, tax avoidance and insider trading were also done to steal public money.
• By public money, Cobra Post meant public sector banks. The money which promoters of DHFL siphoned off belong to public sector banks: While SBI’s Rs 11,000 crore is at stake, Bank of Baroda has Rs 4000 crore at stake here, which can be declared as non-performing asset, and hence, a direct loss to the public.
• Cobra Post said, “Thus, the only losers in the process would be the public sector banks, such as SBI and Bank of Baroda, with an exposure of over ?11,000 crore and ?4,000 crore, respectively, foreign banks and shareholders from among the public or investors of DHFL,”
• Money which was siphoned-off by the promoters was used to buy assets in UK, Dubai, Sri Lanka and Mauritius, and also equities in other companies and countries.
• Cobra Post is claiming to have identified 45 such shell companies, which were used to siphoning off the money. These companies were given unsecured loans of Rs 14,282 crore. Out of 45, 34 shell companies belong to the promoters/relatives of DHFL owners, and were given unsecured loans of Rs. 10,493 crore.
• While Rs Rs. 3,789 crore in loans was given to Sahara, which will be soon declared as NPA.
• The press release by Cobra Post also alleges that companies linked with the promoters gave political donations to BJP. Rs 19.5 crore was allegedly donated to BJP by RKW Developers Pvt Ltd, Skill Realtors Pvt Ltd and Darshan Developers Pvt Ltd, which are indirectly linked with DHFL during 2014-15 and 2016-17. Cobra Post said, “These charities, however, flout the provisions of Section 182 of the Companies Act, 2013, which govern corporate funding to political parties,”
• DHFL has dismissed these allegations. In a statement, DHFL said, “This mischievous misadventure by CobraPost appears to have been done with a mala fide intent to cause damage to the goodwill and reputation of DHFL and resulting in erosion in shareholder value.”

You can read the entire sting operation of Conra Post right here.

We will keep you updated, as more details come in..