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Yes Bank founder charged in Rs43b crime

Rana Kapoor, founder of India's embattled Yes Bank, who was taken into custody by the Enforcement Directorate, was allegedly involved in generating Rs43 billion in black money and "laundering" the amount.
Kapoor, his wife and three daughters are among 13 accused named by India's Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) over charges of bribery and money-laundering linked to the country's fourth largest private lender. The charges were filed on a day of raids in seven locations linked to the family.
On Sunday, Roshni, one of Kapoor's daughters, was stopped at the Mumbai airport as she was about to board a flight to London, in the middle of the investigation into corruption in Yes Bank.
Yes Bank was last week placed under a moratorium by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), which took control of the board and also imposed a Rs 50,000-limit on withdrawals from the bank, sending thousands of depositors scurrying to retrieve their money.
Kapoor was arrested in the early hours of Sunday after marathon questioning the day before by investigators and searches at his and his daughters' homes in Delhi and Mumbai. A lookout notice was also issued against his wife, daughters and other family members.
According to the case filed by the CBI, Yes Bank invested around Rs37 billion in DHFL or Dewan Housing and Finance Ltd around the same time it granted a Rs6 billion loan to a company called Doit, owned by Kapoor's three daughters Roshni, Rakhee, and Radha.
Meanwhile, shares in the troubled bank jumped by a third on Monday on hopes of a central bank-backed rescue plan. Yes Bank, which is struggling under a massive pile of bad loans, plunged 56 per cent on Friday after the RBI seized control of the lender and imposed withdrawal limits. The bank's shares rallied 31 per cent on Monday after the country's largest lender, the State Bank of India, confirmed it was ready to invest Rs24.5 billion for a 49 per cent stake as part of a rescue package.
The RBI tweeted on Sunday that depositors should not worry about their savings in any bank after customers rushed to Yes Bank ATMs and branches on Friday and Saturday in a desperate bid to retrieve their funds.
The RBI also indicated it would write down some bonds issued by Yes Bank. The RBI said the lender's weakened position was "largely due to inability of the bank to raise capital to address potential loan losses and resultant downgrades."
- issacjohn@khaleejtimes.com