B'luru flat fraud case: ED attaches agricultural land worth Rs 7 crore in TN

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday provisionally attached an immovable property in Tamil Nadu's Nilgiri district in connection with a money-laundering probe into an alleged flat buyers' cheating case in Bengaluru.

The property, which is in the form of agricultural land, amounts to Rs 6.97 crores. The ED initiated the investigation under Prevention of Money Laundering Act based on several FIRs registered at a police station at Bengaluru's Rama Murthy Nagar.

"The investigation was carried out based on the allegation that Deepak Kumar Singh and Prakaash Kumar Singh, Directors of the Sovereign Developers and Infrastructure Limited (SDIL) made false promises and collected money from buyers and made sale agreements with them but had failed to handover the flats within the stipulated period," the probe agency said in the statement.

The ED stated that the accused demanded more money over and above the agreed amount "as escalation charges" and did not pay relevant taxes, fees, and charges to the concerned departments.

"The accused have purchased immovable property by diverting the fraudulently collected amount from the gullible residential flat buyers thereby committing the offence of money laundering," the ED said.

It added, "In this manner amount of Rs 6.97 crores was transferred for purchase of agricultural land in Nilgiri District of Tamil Nadu, which is proceeds of crime and accordingly the same has been provisionally attached under PMLA.