Saradha scam: ED attaches assets worth Rs 60 cr

Moving ahead in the multi-crore Saradha chit funds scam case, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) today attached assets, including a school, a cement factory and few resorts, worth Rs 60 crore in West Bengal in connection with its money laundering probe.

The agency, while issuing its seventh attachment of properties order under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), seized an operational school called Linclon High School, a cement factory by the name Landmark Cement Factory and a number of flats and resorts spread in various places in West Bengal.

The attachment order issued by the Kolkata office of the agency said the total conservative value of these assets is about Rs 60 crore but the actual market price of these immovable assets would be three-four times higher that the official valuation. “ A resort in Lataguri, residential flats in Siliguri, several tracts of land in Malda and South 24 Parganas district and accounts of East Bengal and United Mohun Bagan have been attached under PMLA laws,”  ED sources said.

A flat in Odisha's Cuttack and several other real estate properties associated directly or indirectly with jailed Saradha group Chairman Sudipta Sen and his associates have been attached, they said.

The sources said the ED found these assets to be largely under benami heads which have been procured through multi-layered financial transactions by Sen and his associates which gave suspicion of money laundering.

The ED has already attached assets worth Rs 400 crore in this ponzi scheme case which is alleged to have duped numerous investors in West Bengal, Assam and Odisha. The agency issued the order after its Eastern Zone Special Director Yogesh Gupta met the Special Investigation Team (SIT) on blackmoney in Delhi recently which appreciated the agency's probe in this case and reviewed its attachment orders issued till now. An attachment order under PMLA is meant to deprive the accused from the benefits of his or her illegally acquired assets.