ED provisionally attaches ten immovable properties of NSEL

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday provisionally attached ten immovable properties of National Spot Exchange Limited (NSEL) having a market value of Rs. 177.33 Crores under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002.

The aforementioned property is controlled by Surender Gupta of M/s P D Agro Processors Pvt Ltd and M/s Dunar Foods Ltd, a major defaulter of NSEL.

Earlier, the ED had registered money laundering case in the NSEL scam under the provisions of PMLA, 2002 on the basis of FIR registered by EOW in October 2013.

It was alleged that the accused persons in the said case hatched a criminal conspiracy to defraud the investors, induced them to trade on the platform of NSEL, created forged documents like bogus warehouse receipts, falsified the accounts and thereby committed criminal breach of trust against approximately 13,000 investors to the tune of Rs. 5,600 crores.

Out of the said proceeds of Rs 5,600 Crores, the total liability of M/s P D Agro Processors Pvt Ltd was to the tune of Rs. 637 Crores and the ED has provisionally attached the property worth Rs. 215 Crore of M/s P D Agro Processors Pvt Ltd and M/s Dunar Foods Ltd, including this present attachment.

The total attachment, in this case, has reached the extent of Rs 2,890 Crore.

During the investigation, it was revealed that M/s P D Agro Processors Pvt Ltd has fraudulently obtained huge funds from NSEL by trading on the exchange platform against the non-existent/fictitious sale of their commodity (paddy/rice). The money trail has revealed that a huge chunk of proceeds of crime has been transferred to M/s Dunar Foods Ltd, a sister concern of M/s P D Agro Processors Pvt Ltd.

A prosecution complaint has also been filed against the said accused in March 2015, before the Special PMLA Court, Mumbai.

Further investigation in this regard is underway.