Did Vijay Mallya use loan money to buy a racehorse worth Rs 9 crore?

NEW DELHI: Investigators are looking into whether Vijay Mallya used part of the money loaned to his now-grounded Kingfisher Airlines by IDBI Bank to buy a racehorse that cost Rs 9 crore, officials dealing with the matter said. They are now considering confiscating the stallion, Air Support, that Mallya imported from the US in 2014 and kept at his Kunigal stud farm near Bengaluru, a senior official at the Enforcement Directorate said.

The Central Bureau of Investigation and Enforcement Directorate are investigating allegations that Mallya diverted part of the Rs 900 - crore loan taken from IDBI Bank. The businessman and Kingfisher Airlines deny the allegations.

The CBI spokesperson did not respond to ET’s query. An email sent to Mallya went unanswered. The officials ET spoke to said they stumbled upon this discovery quite by chance. There was an innocuous entry in CBI's FIR against Mallya: Rs 9,07,85,262 under the head ‘Payments Made To’ for the purchase of 'Climber Air Support'.

The CBI didn't pay much attention to it, thinking it might be some aircraft component. However, when the Enforcement Directorate went over the papers, it suspected that the reference was to the horse.

According to ED officials, the stallion was purchased from a prominent horse breeder in the US. When Mallya bought the horse for his United Racing and Bloodstock Breeders, it had already won five major races in the US.