The CBI has booked Dewan Housing Finance, its former CMD Kapil Wadhawan, director Dheeraj Wadhawan and others for bank fraud of Rs 34,615 crore, making it the biggest such case probed by the agency, officials said on Wednesday.

Following the registration of the case on June 20, a team of over 50 officials from the agency on Wednesday carried out co-ordinated searches on 12 premises in Mumbai. The offices belonged to the accused which also include Sudhakar Shetty of Amaryllis Realtors and eight other builders.

The action came on a complaint from the Union Bank of India (UBI), leader of a 17-member lender consortium, which had extended credit facilities to the tune of Rs 42,871 crore between 2010 and 2018.

The bank has alleged that Kapil and Dheeraj Wadhawan in criminal conspiracy with others misrepresented and concealed facts, committed criminal breach of trust and abused public funds to cheat the consortium of Rs 34,614 crore by defaulting on loan repayments from May 2019 onwards.

The audit of DHFL account books showed that the company allegedly committed financial irregularities, diverted funds, fabricated books, round tripped funds to “create assets for Kapil and Dheeraj Wadhawan” using public money.

Both are in judicial custody in connection with previous fraud cases against them.

The DHFL loan accounts were declared non-performing assets at different points of time by lender banks.

When DHFL was hit by investigation in January 2019 after media reports on allegations of siphoning of funds surfaced, the lender banks held a meeting on February 1, 2019 and appointed KPMG to conduct a “special review audit” of DHFL from April 1, 2015 to December 31, 2018.

The banks also issued a look out circular against Kapil and Dheeraj Wadhawan on October 18, 2019 to prevent them from leaving the country, they said.

The UBI has alleged that KPMG, in its audit, red-flagged diversion of funds in the garb of loans and advances to related and interconnected entities and individuals of DHFL and its directors.

The scrutiny of account books showed that 66 entities having commonalities with DHFL promoters were disbursed Rs 29,100 crore against which Rs 29,849 crore remained outstanding.

“Most of the transactions of such entities and individuals were in the nature of investments in land and properties,” the bank alleged.