MUMBAI — Things appear to be worsening for businessman Anil Ambani, once counted among India’s wealthiest industrialists, as new allegations have surfaced accusing his Reliance Group of diverting funds worth ₹41,921 crore through a complex web of domestic and offshore entities.
The claims were made in an explosive report published Thursday by a leading investigative portal, which said that Ambani’s companies — including Reliance Communications, Reliance Capital, Reliance Home Finance, Reliance Commercial Finance, and Reliance Corporate Advisory Services — had been involved in what it described as “systematic financial fraud” dating back to 2006.
The portal alleged that over the years, funds raised through bank loans, IPO proceeds, and bonds were siphoned off to promoter-linked entities and routed through shell companies and special purpose vehicles (SPVs) spread across jurisdictions such as Singapore, Mauritius, Cyprus, the British Virgin Islands, the U.S., and the U.K.
The Anatomy of the Alleged Diversion
According to the portal’s findings, around ₹28,874 crore were initially mobilized by Reliance Group companies through conventional financing channels and subsequently transferred to entities linked to the group’s promoters.
An additional USD 1.535 billion (₹13,047 crore) allegedly entered India “in a fraudulent manner” through offshore intermediaries. One particular transaction cited involved Emerging Market Investments & Trading Pte (EMITS), a Singapore-based firm that received USD 750 million from an entity called NexGen Capital, which the report described as a “mysterious benefactor.”
The funds were purportedly transferred to Reliance Innoventures, the Reliance Group’s holding company, before NexGen Capital was dissolved — a move that, according to the investigators, may constitute money laundering.
The report further alleged misuse of corporate funds for personal luxury purchases, including a USD 20 million yacht reportedly bought by Ambani in 2008 using money from a listed group company.
The investigation cited violations of the Companies Act, Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) Act, and the Income Tax Act, drawing on filings and orders from agencies including SEBI, NCLT, RBI, and the Ministry of Corporate Affairs.
A Web of Shell Companies and Vanishing Capital
The alleged scheme, according to the portal, involved dozens of pass-through entities and SPVs designed to obscure the flow of funds. Many of these entities, it claimed, were eventually dissolved after transferring money to offshore accounts, leaving behind companies saddled with bad loans and vanishing market capitalization.
By the portal’s estimation, the total public wealth erosion linked to the Ambani-led Reliance Group — including market losses and unpaid debts — exceeded ₹3.38 lakh crore.
Aniruddha Bahal, the portal’s editor, said the findings were based on cross-referencing official filings, court orders, and regulatory disclosures in India and abroad. He described the alleged network as “an elaborate system of circular transactions” meant to conceal ownership, inflate valuations, and recycle debt through an ecosystem of “shell intermediaries.”
The claims come at a time when several Ambani-led entities are already under financial stress or facing insolvency proceedings. Reliance Communications, once India’s second-largest telecom operator, is now defunct, while Reliance Capital and Reliance Home Finance are undergoing resolution under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC).
Reliance Group Hits Back
In a strongly worded rebuttal, the Reliance Group dismissed the report as a “recycled, agenda-driven corporate hit job by a dead platform resurrected by entities with vested interests.”
“The allegations are false, malicious, and based on publicly available information already examined by multiple agencies including the CBI, ED, SEBI, and the RBI,” the group said in a statement. “This is an organized attempt to prejudice a fair trial and mislead stakeholders.”
The group further accused the publication of conducting a “campaign of calumny and disinformation” aimed at crashing Reliance stock prices and engineering panic in financial markets to enable a hostile acquisition of its assets.
Two of its listed companies — Reliance Infrastructure Ltd and Reliance Power Ltd — have since filed complaints with SEBI, seeking an investigation into recent trading patterns that they claim show “unusual activity” following the publication of the report.
Despite its vehement denial, the allegations mark another blow to Anil Ambani’s embattled conglomerate, which has spent much of the past decade battling insolvency, litigation, and dwindling investor confidence — a far cry from the empire he inherited after the 2005 split of the Reliance business between him and his elder brother, Mukesh Ambani.
