CBI Raids Anil Ambani-Linked Premises in ₹17,000 Crore Bank Fraud Probe

Mumbai, August 23: It started early in the day quiet convoys of white SUVs pulling into lanes in South Mumbai. Inside them, officers from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), carrying sealed warrant files and portable hard drives. Their destination: properties linked to Anil Ambani, the former billionaire tycoon who once stood shoulder to shoulder with India’s most powerful industrialists. Not today.

CBI teams raided at least three locations associated with Reliance Communications (RCom) and its promoter, Anil Ambani, in connection with a mounting bank loan fraud investigation. The alleged amount? Somewhere between ₹2,000 crore and ₹17,000 crore, depending on who you ask and which part of the sprawling financial web you’re looking at.

“Kuch Toh Gadbad Hai”: The Words Hanging Over Ambani’s Empire

Outside one of the buildings, a CBI officer, speaking off the record to a local reporter, muttered just five words: “कुछ तो गड़बड़ है” “Something’s not right.”

That might just end up being the headline that defines the day.

The raids weren’t sudden. They follow months of unease in financial circles, triggered first by the State Bank of India (SBI) flagging certain Reliance Group accounts as fraudulent back in June. That move automatically alerted central agencies. Today, it exploded into public view.

According to officials cited by The Economic Times and Indian Express, the CBI has now filed a formal First Information Report (FIR). The action appears to focus specifically on loans taken by RCom and routed through a cluster of Ambani group companies. There are serious questions about where that money went and whether it ever had a chance of being paid back.

₹2,000 Crore? ₹17,000 Crore? The Fog of Numbers

Here’s the confusing part: the amounts in question don’t quite match from one agency to the next. SBI is reportedly looking at a ₹2,000 crore hit. But if you zoom out, include other lenders, and trace the full financial footprint of Ambani’s once-massive corporate tree ₹17,000 crore is the number that keeps coming up.

That higher figure seems to reflect the total exposure across multiple institutions, much of it tied to companies like Reliance Home Finance and Reliance Commercial Finance, both of which have faced intense regulatory heat in recent years.

At the time of the loans, these companies were rated reasonably well. But forensic audits later found a mess loan amounts shifting between companies, non-existent borrowers, and classic signs of “evergreening,” a tactic where fresh loans cover old defaults.

And then there’s the other piece of the puzzle.

ED Has Been Closing In for Weeks

Earlier this month, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) quietly ramped up its own investigation. Anil Ambani was called in for questioning under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) not once, but for nearly 10 hours straight.

What they were looking for was pretty straightforward: proof that large corporate loans had been siphoned off using shell companies, round-tripped, and then buried under fake book entries. Classic laundering. Classic fraud. At least, that’s what the ED suspects.

Multiple reports suggest some of the firms involved had no employees, no assets, no real business just a few desks and a bank account. If proven, it could point to one of the largest cases of coordinated corporate financial misconduct in recent memory.

Silence from the Ambani Camp

So far, there’s been no statement from Anil Ambani, Reliance Communications, or any affiliated spokesperson. That silence is not entirely surprising. Over the past few years, as RCom collapsed under debt and legal entanglements, Ambani has receded from public view.

He famously declared himself bankrupt in a UK court in 2020 a move that stunned both allies and adversaries and since then, has kept a low profile. But today’s raids bring him back into the harshest possible spotlight.

And this time, the scrutiny is not just financial. It’s criminal.

A Fall Still Unfolding

It’s hard to overstate how different things looked just 15 years ago. Anil Ambani was the future of Indian telecom. Young, media-savvy, comfortable in boardrooms and Bollywood alike. While Mukesh Ambani quietly built out Reliance’s oil and petrochemical empire, Anil became the face of consumer finance, entertainment, and mobile connectivity.

And then, slowly, it all began to crack.

RCom’s collapse was brutal. The company couldn’t compete in the data war triggered by Jio ironically launched by Mukesh and defaulted on massive debt. The crash wasn’t just commercial. It left behind a trail of unpaid vendors, confused investors, and red flags that investigators are now chasing.

Bigger Than Just One Man?

For what it’s worth, this isn’t just about Anil Ambani. The CBI and ED are increasingly targeting a pattern that’s emerged across several fallen empires big loans, bad audits, inflated assets, and no accountability. Think DHFL, IL&FS, ABG Shipyard, even the tail end of Yes Bank.

But Ambani’s name adds a certain weight. This isn’t a startup founder or a mid-level industrialist. This is a man whose signature once carried the future of Indian infrastructure.

Whether that future now ends in courtrooms and chargesheets remains to be seen. What’s clear is that the agencies aren’t backing down.

As one senior investigator put it bluntly, “He’s not the only one. But we’re starting here.”

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