A former chairman and three other ex-officials of IDBI Bank were among eight people arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the Vijay Mallya loan default case, which range to several thousand crore.
Four former executives of Kingfisher Airlines have also been arrested by the investigative agency.
Those arrested include the then Chairman of IDBI Bank Yogesh Aggarwal and former CFO of now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines A Raghunathan, CBI sources said.
They said three more former executives of the airlines and three more former officials of IDBI Bank were also taken into custody.
The arrests were followed by searches at 11 places including Mallya's residence here, three floors of UB towers in Bengaluru and residences of Aggarwal and Raghunathan among others.
The UB Group is led by Vijay Mallya, who is facing the process of recovery of Rs 6,203 crore from banks in the Kingfisher case and has been declared a proclaimed offender by a court.
"A team of CBI officials from Delhi visited the UB group offices in Bengaluru," a senior CBI official told PTI but did not divulge any details.
"I do not have any details on the issue," he said.
UB Group issued a statement in Bengaluru confirming the visit of CBI team.
"A CBI team visited the UB Group offices in Bangalore today and we are fully cooperating with them,," a UB group spokesperson said.
According to sources, the CBI conducted the raids in connection with a money laundering case.
The agency has registered two cases against Mallya who had left the country after changes were made in the CBI lookout circular against him enabling his exit.
Last year, it had registered a case against him after receiving a complaint from the State Bank of India, which is leading a consortium of 17 banks which extended loans to Mallya's now defunct Kingfisher Airlines.
The sources said it was alleged that Mallya had sought a recast of his loan repayment in which certain information was "suppressed" by the beleaguered businessman.
Earlier, CBI had filed a case of alleged default in loan repayment by the Kingfisher Airlines to IDBI Bank.
The airline had taken Rs 6,900 crore from the consortium of lenders in early 2010 after its loans had been restructured for a second time.
