Rose Valley ponzi scam: ED attaches over Rs 2,300-cr assets

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) today attached assets worth over Rs 2,300 crore, including two dozen hotels and resorts, in connection with its money laundering probe in the Rose Valley ponzi scam case.

Officials said the agency issued a provisional order under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), attaching 11 resorts, nine hotels and a few other such facilities, an about 200-acre plot and 414 land parcels spread across West Bengal.

This is one of the biggest attachment of property orders issued by the central probe agency under the PMLA.

The total worth of the attached properties is Rs 2,380 crore (market value), the agency said in a statement.

With the latest action, the total value of assets seized in this case stands at about Rs 4,200 crore.

The ED had registered an FIR against the firm, its Chairman Gautam Kundu and others in 2014 under the PMLA. Kundu was arrested by the agency in Kolkata in 2015.

Multiple charge sheets have been filed in the courts in Kolkata and Bhubaneswar by the ED in this case.

The group had allegedly floated 27 companies for running alleged chit fund operations out of which only half-a-dozen were active.

The agency has alleged that the firm had floated the scheme promising inflated returns on investments between eight and 27 per cent to gullible investors in various states.

The company had allegedly pledged astronomical returns to depositors on land properties and assets and bookings done in the real estate sector.

The company has also been accused of making "cross investments" in its various sister firms to suppress its liabilities towards investors.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) probed the company before the ED and the CBI registered cases against the group.

According to the ED, the alleged irregularities ran into Rs 15,000 crore, including interest and penalties.

In August last year, angry depositors of Rose Valley's various schemes had ransacked a hotel owned by the company at a prime location in the city, demanding that their money be returned.