Iqbal Mirchi case: ED attaches Worli properties linked to Praful Patel

The recent action is part of ED’s ongoing probe in the Iqbal Mirchi money laundering case, agency sources confirmed on Thursday.

Mumbai: The Enforcement Directorate has sealed a certain number of units across four floors of Ceejay House, the Worli building built by Nationalist Congress Party politician Praful Patel’s company, Millennium.

A view of Ceejay House in which the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has attached four floors belonging to former Union Aviation Minister Praful Patel in Iqbal Mirchi case, at Worli, in Mumbai, India, on Thursday, July 21, 2022. (Bhushan Koyande/HT PHOTO)

The recent action is part of ED’s ongoing probe in the Iqbal Mirchi money laundering case, agency sources confirmed on Thursday. The units provisionally attached by ED are located on the 12th, 13th, 14thand 15thfloors of Ceejay House, and are owned by Patel and members of his family. The former aviation minister also has his primary residence at Ceejay House though it is not clear whether the apartment he lives in has also been seized.

In 2019, ED had attached another two floors at Ceejay House which belonged to Mirchi’s family. Iqbal Mirchi, a key member of Dawood Ibrahim’s gang, died in London in 2013.

The ED in the course of its money laundering investigation has said, “Mirchi was an international drugs dealer and smuggler who amassed huge wealth and acquired various immovable properties worth hundreds of crores and businesses across the globe. After detailed investigation under Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), ED started attaching his properties held in India.” The agency contends that these properties in India were acquired by Iqbal Mirchi in the name of his family members and relatives.

Millennium Developers Private Limited which is Praful Patel’s company, built Ceejay House in 2006-07 and transferred its 3rd and 4th floor to Mirchi’s wife, Hazra Iqbal, in 2007 “towards beneficial interest of Mirchi in the land” on which Ceejay House was built, contends the agency. The agency further makes the case that some more units of Ceejay House on the four floors owned by Praful Patel’s family, were linked to laundered money and hence they have been provisionally attached.

Praful Patel, former aviation minister, has already been questioned by Enforcement Directorate in October 2019 after which he had held a press briefing in which he had categorically refuted allegations of any links to the Mirchi family, and had claimed that all the property dealings at Ceejay House were legitimate.

Sources said that a few more properties linked to the case had been seized but refused to divulge any further details as the investigation is still not over. So far the ED has provisionally attached assets worth more than ₹800 Crore linked to Mirchi in India and abroad under PMLA. Five accused in the case have already been arrested in 2020 and the matter is now before the Special PMLA court.