Jet founder Naresh Goyal (File photo)

MUMBAI: The Enforcement Directorate detained Jet Airways founder Naresh Goyal after long hours of questioning at its Ballard Estate office on Wednesday. Sources said the ED, which took him home in its car, was searching his SoBo house at the time of going to press. It has filed a money laundering case against him.

The agency has been probing Jet and Goyal under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (Fema) and was considering filing a money laundering case. The ED, which is probing Jet’s financial deals of the last 12 years, has quizzed Goyal over a dozen times in the Fema case. It has also questioned his wife and son a couple of times. It is looking into suspicious transactions involving 19 privately held firms —14 registered in India and five abroad—associated with Goyal.

‘Naresh Goyal allegedly linked to firms in tax havens’

According to sources, Jet Airways founder Naresh Goyal also allegedly indirectly controls other companies in tax havens. The grounded airline had allegedly diverted most of the Rs 8,000-crore loan secured from banks abroad by inflating payments and through fictitious transactions, officials said. Jet’s lenders, led by SBI, have initiated bankruptcy proceedings agai- nst the airline with the National Company Law Tribunal.

Recently, Mumbai police had registered a fraud case against Goyal on a complaint filed by a travel agency.



In Video: Jet ex-promoter Naresh Goyal detained by Enforcement Directorate, booked for laundering