The Enforcement Directorate (ED) Thursday carried out searches at nine locations in Maharashtra associated with sugar baron Ratnakar Gutte, who is also a leader of BJP ally Rashtriya Samaj Paksha (RSP), in connection with a multi-crore bank loan fraud.

Mumbai: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) Thursday carried out searches at nine locations in Maharashtra associated with sugar baron Ratnakar Gutte, who is also a leader of BJP ally Rashtriya Samaj Paksha (RSP), in connection with a multi-crore bank loan fraud.

Ratnakar Gutte is the father of Vijay Gutte who directed the Bollywood film, “The Accidental Prime Minister”, based on former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Reportedly, the searches were carried out at Gutte’s premises in Parbhani district and Nagpur and at three locations in Mumbai, including an educational institute in Bandra west.

The Enforcement Directorate’s investigation is based on a FIR filed by the Maharashtra police in connection with the multi-crore bank fraud. Gutte has been accused of availing loans from six banks based on fake documents made in the name of farmers.

Gutte had contested the 2014 Assembly elections in Maharashtra as a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ally but lost to the NCP.

In July last year, the Aurangabad bench of the Bombay high court directed the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of Maharashtra police to probe an alleged fraud in the Parbhani district where crop loans worth Rs 328 crore were taken from five nationalised and one private bank in the name of thousands of farmers by allegedly forging documents.

In August last year, Vijay Gutte was arrested for an alleged Goods and Services Tax (GST) fraud of over Rs 34 crore.

The six banks from which loans were taken included Andhra Bank, UCO Bank, United Bank of India, Bank of India, Syndicate Bank and RBL Bank. The loans were obtained in the names of sugarcane farmers who were members of the Gangakhed Sugar and Energy Pvt. Ltd., a factory owned by Gutte.

The agency believed that most farmers who were granted loans never existed, a few were dead and some were not even aware that they had been granted loans.