New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate on Tuesday said it has attached assets worth more than Rs 124 crore belonging to various companies as part of a money laundering investigation against Religare Finvest Limited (RFL) and others.
The properties attached, as part of a provisional order issued under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), are in the form of land and farm houses located in the “posh” area of Gurugram and Delhi and belong to R S Infrastructure Pvt. Ltd., Kenwood Mercantile Pvt. Ltd., M/s Goodfaith Builders Pvt. Ltd. and others, the central agency said in a statement.
The total value of these assets is Rs 124.57 crore.
Kenwood Mercantile Pvt. Ltd. and Goodfaith Builders Pvt. Ltd are entities belonging to the M3M group, a Gurugram-based realtor and 430 acres of land in Gurugram and Faridabad belonging to these entities has been attached being the “proceeds of crime flowing through a maze of companies to the M3M group”, it said.
The agency alleged a partnership firm by the name of M3M India Holdings — with its partners Roop Kumar Bansal, Basant Bansal, Abha Bansal and Pankaj Bansal– had received “proceeds of crime in excess of Rs 500 crore by showing sale of shares of a land owing company RS Infrastructure Pvt Ltd at a grossly inflated value of Rs 726 crore to an entity Lowe Realty Pvt. Ltd. (currently known as Lowe Infra and Wellness Pvt. Ltd.)”.
The land owned by RS Infrastructure Pvt. Ltd. was “deliberately inflated” by M3M India Holdings (former shareholder of RS Infrastructure Pvt. Ltd.) to drain out hefty funds from Lowe Realty Pvt. Ltd. which borrowed the same amount from Religare group, the agency claimed.
The ED has filed three charge sheets in this case till now and has frozen assets in the past too in order to “attach the proceeds of crime that originated from the corporate loan book fraud of Religare Finvest Limited”.
Properties worth Rs 54 crore and USD 1,50,00,000 belonging to RS Infrastructure Pvt. Ltd. and Malvinder Mohan Singh were attached in 2020 a nd 2021.
The nature of the properties attached in India includes land and farmhouse (s) whereas properties attached in foreign jurisdiction include an insurance policy of AXA China Insurance Company (Bermuda) Ltd. belonging to Malvinder Mohan Singh, erstwhile promoter of Religare group, it said.
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