New Delhi, Feb. 4 -- The Enforcement Directorate has taken control of shares previously owned by Hari Shankar Tibrewala in at least 14 public companies, less than eight months after the financial crime investigation agency began its probe against the alleged kingpin of a small-cap stock market manipulation fraud.

According to a Mint review of the shareholding pattern of these companies, the ownership transfer from Tibrewala-owned entities to the Enforcement Directorate, Raipur, occurred in the last week of November.

These 14 small-cap companies, with a market cap of Rs.21,880 crore, counted Tibrewala-owned Zenith Multi Trading DMCC, Ecotek General Trading LLC and Caterfield Global DMCC, as shareholders at the end of September. According...