Citibank scam: ED freezes Puri's assets worth Rs 5 cr

Enforcement Directorate has issued fresh orders for attaching assets worth about Rs five crore in connection with its money laundering probe in the Citibank Gurgaon scam.
The order on freezing bank accounts and assets in the name of bank's relationship manager and alleged mastermind of the scam Shivraj Puri is the second such action by the agency in this 2011 case, after it had undertaken similar action against him related to properties and cash worth Rs 20 crore.
The agency will also file a chargesheet in this case soon, sources said.
Several depositors were duped in the Rs 460.91-crore alleged fraud engineered by Puri, also a Global Wealth Manager of the bank working at its branch in neighbouring Gurgaon in Haryana.

An attachment order by the ED is aimed to deprive the accused from deriving any benefit out of the tainted properties as they are termed as "proceeds of crime".
The accused can challenge the order at the Adjudicating Authority of the anti-money laundering law based in the national capital within 180 days.

The ED had registered a case in this alleged scam under provisions of Prevention of Money Laundering (PMLA) in 2012.
The Haryana police had last year filed a charge sheet against the fraud accused and capital market regulator SEBI too probed the matter as the fraud money was invested in the stock market.

As per a SEBI report, Puri had allegedly taken an exposure of Rs 1.13 lakh crore in the equity market using Rs 236 crore of 51 high networth individuals and corporates and lost everything following decline in stock markets.
The government had earlier said the fraud in the Gurgaon branch of the bank had been going on since September 2009 but major transactions only took place between May 2010 and November 2010.