India's financial crime agency has frozen 75 billion rupees ($853 million) worth of properties linked to companies of the Reliance Anil Ambani Group as part of a money-laundering probe, it said in a statement on Monday. Other group companies did not comment, while YES Bank declined to comment. Investigators have detected the "fraudulent diversion of public money" by entities including Reliance Group-controlled companies Reliance Home Finance Ltd and Reliance Commercial Finance Ltd, the ED said. These companies received over 100 billion rupees of public funds, including loans from YES Bank, through shell companies, it said. The Reliance Group entities are also accused of paying bribes to YES Bank officials before loans were disbursed, a government source had said earlier.
