The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has provisionally attached assets worth Rs 4,109 crore under Prevention of Money laundering Act (PMLA) in Agri Gold Ponzi fraud Case involving fraud of Rs 6,380 crore.
The attached assets include 2,809 landed properties, Haailand Amusement Park of Arka Leisure and Entertainments Private Limited in Andhra Pradesh spread over 48 acres, shares of various companies, plants and machinery.
These attached properties are located in Andhra Pradesh’s Anantpur, Kurnool, Krishna, Chitoor, Guntur, Kadapa, Vizianagaram, East and West Godavari, Visakhapatnam, Nellore, Prakasam, Srikakulam and Kadapa districts.
The properties attached in Karnataka are located in Bengaluru, Kolar, Yadgir and Mandya.
In Odisha, it is in Khurda district. Krishnagiri District of Tamil Nadu.
In Telangana, properties were attached in Mahaboob Nagar, Narayanpet, Khammam, Mahboob Nagar, Hyderabad, Ranga Reddy, Vikarabad , Medchal, Malkajgiri, Nalgonda and Mahabubnagar districts
The ED had initiated investigation under PMLA based on multiple FIRs lodged in the States of AP, Telangana and Karnataka.
“The scam was perpetrated by accused Avva Venkata Rama Rao through Agri Gold Group of Companies. Avva Venkata Rama Rao hatched a well planned conspiracy and along with his seven brothers and other associates setting up more than 150 companies and started collecting deposits from general public with a promise of providing developed plots/farm lands or withdrawal at a high rate of return on maturity/pre-term,” the ED said in a statement.
Thousands of commission agents were engaged to lure people with various schemes for hefty commission and managed to collect Rs 6,380 crore from 32,02,628 investor accounts, it said.
In the end, the gullible investors neither got plots nor could recover their deposits. Investigation under PMLA further revealed that Agri Gold Group companies used to lure the gullible public to join as depositors in their schemes either directly or through their agents under the pretext of real estate deal.
The ED probe further revealed that Avva Venkata Rama Rao and his family went on a siphoning spree and illegally diverted the public deposits and invested in myriad verticals and in private companies which were directly owned by their family.