About 40 per cent of the money lost by banks in the PNB scam and the fraud linked to fugitive businessman Vijay Mallya’s defunct Kingfisher Airlines has been realised by way of sale of shares seized under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) said on Wednesday. 

The ED added that on Wednesday, Debts Recovery Tribunal (DRT), on behalf of an SBI-led consortium that had lent money to Mr Mallya, sold shares worth over Rs 5,800 crore of United Breweries (UBL) that were earlier attached by the agency under provisions of the PMLA. 

This attachment was earlier done by the ED as a part of its criminal probe against 65-year-old Mr Mallya, who is now in the UK and has lost his plea against extradition to India. The ED said that the DRT action came after the agency transferred the shares (worth nearly Rs 6,600 crore of UBL) attached by it to the SBI-led consortium on the direction of the special PMLA court in Mumbai.

Mr Mallya and fugitive diamantaires Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi, who were involved in the PNB scam, “defrauded public sector banks by siphoning off the funds through their companies, which resulted in a total loss of Rs 22,585.83 crore to the banks”, it said. 

As on date, the agency has attached total assets worth Rs 18,170.02 crore in these two bank fraud cases, the ED added.