The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has provisionally attached 78 immovable properties and 16 movable properties valued at Rs 124 crore belonging to various persons and entities linked to the Chennai-based Surana Group of Companies in a money laundering case linked to three bank fraud cases involving Rs 3,986 crore.
Earlier, the ED had attached properties worth Rs 124.95 crore. Now, the total attachments in the case stand at Rs 248.98 crore.
The ED initiated money laundering investigation on the basis of three FIRs registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Bengaluru against Surana Industries Limited and others, Surana Power Limited and others, and Surana Corporation Limited and others. The ED Investigations have revealed that these three companies of Surana Group have defrauded the banks by floating a web of shell companies wherein they appointed its employees/ relatives as directors/ proprietors/ partners, the ED said in a statement.
The Group indulged in paper transactions with the shell companies without actual movement of goods and the credit capital of the banks were round tripped/ layered to the personal accounts of the promoters of the company by projecting the bank funds as unsecured loans from their associate shell companies.
Such funds were then subsequently infused in the main Group Companies as part of the Promoters contribution to enhance the drawing power limits, the agency said.”Further, some of the diverted funds were used to purchase movable/ immovables properties in the names of various benami persons/ companies.
These actions of the Promoters/ officials of the Surana Group led to the accounts becoming irregular which ultimately led to accounts becoming NPA (non performing asset),” it said.
Based on the investigations conducted, Dinesh Chand Surana, MD of Surana Industries Limited and Surana Power Ltd, Vijay Raj Surana, MD of Surana Corporation Limited and two dummy directors of shell companies —P Anand and I Prabhakaran—were arrested on July 12, 2022 and later they all were sent to judicial custody. The agency has already filed prosecution complaints or chargesheet before the Special Court, PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act).