The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday said it has provisionally attached movable and immovable assets worth Rs 257 crore in Gurugram, Goa, Chennai and other places in a money laundering case against Unitech Limited.
The total proceeds of crime detected by the ED in the case is Rs 6,452 crore.
“The provisionally attached properties include residential/commercial units, land parcels, demand drafts, equity shares and bank account balances. The properties are owned by CIG (Chandra Investment Group) Realty Fund and Authentic Group.Two Separate Provisional attachment orders were issued for attaching these assets, , the ED said in a statement.
The ED had registered a money laundering case against Unitech Group on June 6, 2018 following a directive of the Supreme Court.
The money laundering case was registered on the basis of FIRs registered by Economic Offences Wing (EOW), Delhi Police and Saket police station here under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and relevant provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
For purchasing these properties, homebuyers’ funds of Rs 244 crore were illegally diverted by the Unitech promoters to CIG Realty Fund.
The diverted funds were used to purchase land-owning companies of Unitech Group, the agency said.
Aurum Asset Management Private Limited was one of the companies controlled by the Chandra family, the promoters of the Unitech Group, which was used to manage the affairs of CIG Realty Fund. This company was also used by Chandras’ to siphon-off the investors' funds from the accounts of CIG Realty Fund, it said.
“The misappropriated funds were used to finance the illegal activities of Chandras such as bribing certain Tihar Jail officials and other personal expenses of Ajay Chandra and Sanjay Chandra,” it said.
In 2007, instead of building houses, homebuyers’ funds to the tune of Rs 60.25 crore were illegally diverted by Chandras to Authentic Group with an intention to build a seven-star resort in South Goa. On the basis of money trail in this matter, the ED has attached the southern Goa land for the benefit of homebuyers, it further said.
During the money laundering investigation, the ED has arrested five individuals namely Sanjay Chandra, Ajay Chandra, Ramesh Chandra, Preeti Chandra and Rajesh Malik.
Presently, all of them are in judicial custody. As many as 45 search operations have been conducted in this matter and 14 provisional attachment orders including the current attachments of various domestic and overseas assets worth a total value of Rs 1,059.52 crore have been attached.
The attachment orders include the attachment of assets of Carnoustie Group, Shivalik Group, Trikar Group, CIG Realty Fund, Authentic Group and the assets of shell and personal companies of Chandras.