Mumbai court sends builder to ED custody in Money laundering case

A Mumbai court on Thursday remanded citybased builder Vijay Machindar in the custody of the Enforcement Directorate till January 12 in an alleged Rs 700 crore money laundering caseAccused of cheating several flat buyers he was arrested by the probe agency on Wednesday under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act PMLA newswire PTI reportedSpecial PMLA judge M G Deshpande of a Mumbai court while remanding him in ED custody noted that money laundering was a serious offenceHuge public money is generally involved in such offences and in the instant case the same is Rs 734 crore The ED has not only to trace out the trail of said money but also find out enduse thereof Thorough investigation in such a situation is necessary which cannot be done unless the accused is remanded in ED custody the Mumbai court heldAs per the agency the complainant in the case paid Rs 156040000 to the accused through his bank account and another Rs 28 crore in cash for buying 14 flatsBut he was given allotment letters of only three flats The builder in fact did not hand over the possession of a single flat to anyone and allegedly defrauded the flat buyers of Rs 74 crore the ED saidThe construction did not advance beyond ground excavation the probe agency addedAlso read Navi Mumbai man loses Rs 19 lakh in cryptocurrency fraudA case under IPC section 420 cheating was registered against him based on which the ED recorded its Enforcement Case Information Report ECIR and started a parallel probeThe ED in its remand plea also claimed that Machindar took loans and to pay them off took more loansThere were claims of Rs 73427 crore against him before the National Company Law Tribunal as of May 30 2023 which is proceeds of crime the ED arguedMeanwhile the Enforcement Directorate Thursday said it recently searched premises linked to a honorary counsel to Mauritius and promoter of the Chennaibased R R Group Ravi Raman as part of an investigation linked to an alleged fraud in foreign funds against himEight locations connected to Raman were raided by the central agency on December 28 last year under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act PMLAThe money laundering case against Raman and his wife Shobhana Ravi stems from a Chennai Police Central Crime Branch CCB complaint that alleged cheating forgery and criminal conspiracy for swindling foreign fundsinvestments of Rs 117 crore received from the Old Lane GroupRaman the ED alleged funnelled the funds received from the group Old Lane in the form of FDI for the development of a tech park in AmbatturCertain properties of group companies were kept as collateralsecurity in lieu of the funds received from the foreign investor and an irrevocable GPA general power of attorney was signed in favour of the foreign investorRavi Raman also filed a fake FIR on the basis of the pledged property documents being lost and subsequently sold the pledged properties by illegally cancelling the GPA it saidRavi Raman siphoned off some of the funds during the crime period through his Singaporebased entity R R Industries Singapore Pte Ltd which was further invested in Indonesian coal mines along with Novem Coal Resources Pte Ltd which is owned by his cousin it saidThe agency said it seized Rs 64 lakh in unaccounted for cash a significant number of property deeds and documents having a value of more than Rs 850 crore during the searchesThe investigation also found that R R Group received other foreign investments from entities that are based overseas and it being investigated the ED said With inputs from agencies