Mumbai: The Enforcement Directorate (ED), Mumbai Zonal office, provisionally attached immovable assets approximately worth Rs 115.86 Crore on Monday in the money laundering case linked to Rs 5,600 crore National Spot Exchange Limited (NSEL) investment alleged fraud case. With the latest attachment the total worth of properties attached in the case has now reached Rs 3,433.06 Crore.
The central agency on Wednesday in a statement said that the attached assets include 15 immovable properties situated in Mumbai, Delhi and Rajasthan belonging to various defaulters of NSEL; Mohan India Group, Vimladevi Agrotech Ltd., Yathuri Associates and Lotus Refineries.
According to the ED, the accused persons in the (NSEL fraud) case allegedly hatched a criminal conspiracy to defraud the investors, induced them to trade on the platform of NSEL, allegedly created forged documents like bogus warehouse receipts, falsified the accounts and thereby committed criminal breach of trust and defrauded investors to the tune of Rs 5,600 Crore.
“It has been revealed that the genuine investors were defrauded of their investments by way of serious misappropriation, which is apparent from the fact that NSEL allowed trading of commodities by sellers, without ensuring that goods of appropriate quantity and quality were stored in the exchange-controlled warehouses, resulting in thousands of investors trading in non-existent goods,” the ED stated in a statement.
It was also gathered that the monies collected from various investors were diverted by trading members (defaulters) of NSEL for other activities like investment into real estate, repayment of outstanding debts and other activities, the agency added.
The anti-money laundering agency has already filed seven Prosecution Complaints (equivalent to chargesheet) against NSEL, various defaulters and broking entities.
