Odisha ponzi case: ED attaches Rs 84 crore of assets of firm

Enforcement Directorate (ED) today attached assets worth Rs 84 crore in connection with its money laundering probe against Odisha-based Seashore group of companies in an alleged chitfund scam case.
ED's zonal office here issued the orders under Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) as it attached Rs three crore cash deposits and land properties in the capital city, Sambalpur and other locations of the rest value of the total attachment of Rs 84 crore.
This is the second attachment by the agency in this case. It had earlier frozen Rs 158 crore worth of assets of the firm in December last which included 200kgs of silver coins, 13 plush flats in various parts of the state, vast tracts of land in Angul, Bhadrak, Mayurbhanj and other places, a corporate office valued at Rs 30 crore in Bhubaneswar, two factories in Mayurbhanj, 1.4kgs of gold coins and other immovable assets in the state.

The case pertains to the alleged duping of investors under a ponzi scheme floated by the company whose CMD Prashant Dash has already been arrested and grilled by state Economic Offences Wing (EOW) and CBI, the two agencies also probing this case.
Established in 2005-06, the Seashore conglomerate forayed into a host of fields including money circulation, real estate, media and gold trading.
An attachment under PMLA laws is aimed at depriving the accussed from the benefits of his or her ill-gotten wealth.

The company is one of the prominent business groups among a clutch of 44 ponzi companies operating in the state which are under the scanner of CBI and ED after an order of the Supreme Court in this regard.

ED, according to records, has accused the firm of running a ponzi scheme and perpetrating an estimated Rs 800 crore fraud duping numerous investors belonging to the state and a few others from West Bengal and Assam.
The agency had registered an FIR in this case in 2013 after taking cognisance of complaints filed by Odisha police and its vigilance department.
The probe, under PMLA, found that the group has been running the chitfund scheme by running cooperative societies and taking money from investors as it promised them "unrealistic" returns on investments.
ED, official sources had said, found these cooperative societies floated by the group to have allegedly fudged KYC, accounting and registration norms in order to perpetrate the scam.