ED attaches 707 acres in Aamby Valley city in case against Sahara Group
ED started its investigation in December 2010 after cases were registered by the police in Rajasthan, Odisha and Bihar for cheating
KOLKATA: The Enforcement Directorate (ED), Kolkata, on Tuesday said it has provisionally attached 707 acres of land in and around Aamby Valley city project in Lonavala worth ₹1460 crore in connection with the money laundering case against Sahara India group.
“This land was purchased in benami names with the funds diverted from Sahara group entities,” ED said in a statement.
The residential and entertainment city in the Sahyadri mountain ranges in Pune district is about 100km from Mumbai and was pitched as India’s first planned hill city.
ED started its investigation in December 2010 after cases were registered by the police in Rajasthan, Odisha and Bihar for cheating against Humara India Credit Co-operative Society Ltd (HICCSL) and others.
In its statement on Tuesday, ED said over 500 FIRs have been filed against the Sahara Group entities and related persons in this connection and more than 300 of them pertained to scheduled offences under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002. These FIRs alleged that depositors were cheated into depositing funds, forced to redeposit funds without their consent and were denied their maturity payments despite demanding maturity pay-outs several times.
HT has sent an email to Sahara India to seek its response to Tuesday’s development.
“ED investigation revealed that Sahara Group was running a ponzi scheme through various entities such as HICCSL, Sahara Credit Cooperative Society Limited (SCCSL), Saharayn Universal Multipurpose Cooperative Society (SUMCS), Stars Multipurpose Cooperative Society Limited (SMCSL), Sahara India Commercial Corporation Ltd (SICCL), Sahara India Real Estate Corporation Ltd (SIRECL), Sahara Housing Investment Corporation Ltd (SHICL) and other Sahara group entities,” the agency said in its statement on Tuesday.
According to the federal agency, the group allegedly cheated depositors and agents by alluring them with high returns and commissions respectively and utilised the funds collected in a non-regulated manner without any information or control of the depositors.
“Furthermore, they avoided repayment and instead forced and allured depositors to redeposit their maturity amount, switching or transferring deposits from one scheme to other scheme and entity,” ED said.
The group allegedly manipulated the books of accounts to camouflage non-repayment, and claimed repayment in a scheme, treating reinvestment in another scheme as fresh investment. In order to perpetuate the ponzi scheme, they allegedly continued to accept fresh deposits despite not being able to repay the existing maturity amount.
“Part of the collected money was siphoned and diverted for creating benami assets, for their personal expenses and lavish lifestyle. Investigation also revealed that they have also disposed-of the assets of Sahara group and received part of payment in undisclosed cash in lieu of sale of land thereby denying the depositors off their rightful claim,” the agency said.
