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Enforcement Directorate has attached properties worth Rs 4,109 crore.
Hyderabad:
Rs 4,109 crore in properties spread across various states have been attached by the Enforcement Directorate in a money laundering case linked to an alleged ponzi scam that duped about 32 lakh people for over Rs 6,000 crore, the agency said on Thursday.
The case involves Agri Gold Group of Companies, whose three promoters were arrested by the central agency on Tuesday.
“The attached assets include 2,809 landed properties, Haailand Amusement Park in the name of Arka Leisure and Entertainments Private Limited in Andhra Pradesh (spread over 48 acres) and shares of various companies, plants and machinery,” the Enforcement Directorate said in a statement.
The assets attached provisionally under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act or PMLA are in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Odisha, Tamil Nadu and Telangana.
The Enforcement Directorate, which investigates financial crimes, had launched a probe after going through various police cases filed against the accused in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka for allegedly duping about 32 lakh investors after funds worth Rs 6,380 crore were collected from them.
The main accused are Avva Venkata Rama Rao, Avva Venkata S Narayana Rao and Avva Hema Sundara Vara Prasad — the promoters of Agri Gold Group of Companies who have been arrested by the Enforcement Directorate.
According to the agency, Avva Venkata Rama Rao planned the scam and, along with his seven brothers and other associates, set up more than 150 companies and started collecting deposits from the general public, promising to develop plots and farmlands or get massive returns.
“Thousands of commission agents were engaged to lure people with various schemes for hefty commission and they managed to collect Rs 6,380 crore from over 32 lakh investor accounts. Subsequently, however, investors neither got plots nor could recover their deposits,” the agency said.
They claimed that Avva Venkata Rama Rao and his family went on siphoning the funds and illegally diverted the public deposits and invested in companies directly owned by their family.
Their names also figured in the Paradise papers leak of 2017 and they had incorporated companies with the help of the infamous Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca in the Cayman Islands.
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