(This story originally appeared in on Oct 24, 2017)

M/S Appstix Technologies, No 7, Sri Banashankari Nilaya, 12th Cross, Vasuvamba Road in Rammurthy Nagar

Vilora Consulting and PE Data Centre Resources, 83 Gandhi Bazar in Basavanagudi

Pharma Trading Company, Gem Investment & Trading Company,

, and Mallya Private

Limited – share the same location: 2, Minto Park, Kolkata.

Sri Seshadri Sampada Building, Hebbal Ring Road

— With inputs from Praveen Kumar in Bengaluru, Jayatri Nag in Kolkata and Emmanuel Gladwin in Chennai

The address on the unkempt marble plaque of a British-era building reads “Pharma Trading Company Private Ltd – 2, Minto Park, Calcutta 700027”. But when you enter the drab compound, the guards reveal there are no offices here. This seemingly unremarkable discrepancy forms the basis of the Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) probe into the shell companies allegedly created by Vijay Mallya , India’s most high-profile “wilful defaulter”, to funnel out portions of loans meant for his now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines Pharma Trading Company is among 20 entities, which, according to the ED, exist in the records of the Registrar of Companies, Ministry of Corporate Affairs, but don’t have any active business operations, staff, assets or offices. They were allegedly used by Mallya as vehicles for secret financial transactions, including money laundering.All the 20 shell companies created by the tycoon are part of the ED charge-sheet filed against Mallya in June this year. The ED also claims that Mallya has created a dozen shell companies across the UK, France, the US, Singapore, Mauritius and the UAE. But the ED has refrained from identifying these foreign shell firms in its prosecution complaint.Mirror, which last month reported the names of the 20 entities, spent two weeks making enquiries at the registered addresses of seven firms in Kolkata, Bangalore, and Chennai. We also spoke to investigators to learn how they tied these little-known companies to the former liquor baron, who fled to Britain last year after arrest warrants were issued against him over huge unpaid loans.In some cases, the agency established the link after quizzing the directors of the suspicious entities and in some others they found that Mallya’s family members or people who worked with him at United Breweries Group were listed as directors. For instance, Anil Pisharody, a UB Group executive, is a director at Pharma Trading Company, according to the ED. Mallya’s mother, Lalitha, and son Sidhartha, are named as directors at Gem Investment & Trading Company, which appears to be a legitimate and functional business only on paper.It was not immediately possible to contact representatives of the businesses whose names have cropped up in the wide-ranging probe. But top ED officials told Mirror they had ferreted out significant evidence against what they described as Mallya’s multi-layered network of shell companies.Senior advocate C S Vaidya-nathan, who had represented Mallya on a few occasions, refused to comment on ED listing the tycoon’s shell companies in its charge sheet. “I do not want to comment on the matter,” Vaidyanathan said.Former additional solicitor general Parag Tripathi, who also has represented Mallya, refused to comment too.Senior lawyer Mahesh Agarwal, who has appeared for Mallya in cases connected with the current ED and CBI investigations, was not available for comments.A senior ED official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity as he is not authorised to comment on ongoing investigations, said: “These ‘paper companies’ were created for a particular purpose by chartered accountants employed by Vijay Mallya. The directors we interviewed told us how they were used as proxies by him.”Mallya, 61, who is currently living in a £11.5-million mansion near London, owes Indian banks Rs 9,000 crore, which he had borrowed to run Kingfisher Airlines. The Enforcement Directorate holds that the airline had been suffering losses right from its inception, but Mallya kept securing loans by wrongly projecting the carrier’s brand value as Rs 3,406 crore.Apart from the ED, the Central Bureau of Investigation is also pursuing cases against him, and Indian authorities are seeking his extradition from Britain. A decision is expected next month.The ED has accused Mallya of using nearly three dozen shell firms to divert funds which were meant for propping his airline. Mallya is suspected to have also parked some funds abroad. On October 3, he was arrested in London following the agency’s allegations that he pumped laundered cash into his Formula One team. He was granted bail almost immediately.Of the 20 Indian firms on the ED’s list, four – Pharma Trading Company, Gem Investment & Trading Company, Kamsco Industries, and Mallya Private Limited – share the same location: 2, Minto Park, Kolkata. But the two-storey building’s watchmen told Mirror that no offices ever functioned there.Like in the case of Gem Investment, Lalitha Mallya and Sidhartha Mallya are listed as directors for Kamsco Industries. An ED official said Pharma Trading’s directors included Tejash Ranjan Ghosh and Lalitha Mallya, apart from Anil Pisharody.According to government records, the office of M/S Appstix Technologies is No 7, Sri Banashankari Nilaya, 12th Cross, Vasuvamba Road in Bangalore’s Rammurthy Nagar. Rajesh Ramesh, a former employee of Mallya, is a director in the company.The ED believes two more Bangalore firms – Vilora Consulting and PE Data Centre Resources – were part of Mallya’s network for redirecting loans. The two companies share the same address, 83 Gandhi Bazar in Basavanagudi locality, but no offices functioned in the building.“These companies never registered any business activity or operated like a corporate entity. They were merely addresses on paper, used as fronts to launder funds,” the official said. “Their books were maintained properly, but the entries were managed by shady operators.”A company located in Rosy Towers in Chennai’s Nungambakkam locality also features on the ED’s list. A worker in the complex told Mirror the company shut down about a year ago.According to a top ED officer, these companies were mostly created between 2004 and 2008. On October 1, 2009 Mallya submitted a loan application before the IDBI Bank for Rs 950 crore.PE Data Centre Resource Private Limited and Appstix Tecnologies Private Limited, both Bangalore based, were created in 2005. Pharma Trading Company Private Limited, Gem Investment & Trading Company Private Limited and Kamsco Industries Private Limited, all Kolkata based, were created in 2006. Vilora Consulting Private Limited, another Bangalore based entity, was created in 2007.Another ED investigator said many of Mallya’s shell companies had Kolkata addresses because the city had a thriving system of on-paper entities supported by accountants and brokers. According to one estimate, Kolkata has over 1.5 lakh such firms, the most in the country.The British court examining the extradition plea is expected to conduct the final hearing on December 4 and the facts compiled by Indian investigators about Mallya’s secret transactions through formal-sounding but bogus businesses may hold the key to the case. The ED and CBI, which have been conducting independent inquiries, may submit a combined charge sheet before the hearing.