Stock Guru scam: Court for attachment of over Rs 100 cr assets

The frozen assets include cash kept in 71 bank accounts, over a dozen properties in cities like Delhi, Greater Noida, Goa

A special court here has ordered attachment of over Rs 100 crore assets and properties of the alleged perpetrators and accomplices in the multi-crore Stock Guru scam on charges of money laundering.

The frozen assets include cash kept in 71 bank accounts, over a dozen properties in cities like Delhi, Greater Noida (Uttar Pradesh), Goa and Ratnagiri (Maharashtra), commodity trading funds and a number of demand drafts, life insurance policies and fixed deposits in the name of main accused of the case Ullas Prabhakar Khaire alias Lokeshwar Dev and his wife Priyanka Saraswat alias Raksha J Urs, their alleged associates and the firms they floated for business.

The assets, with an assessed value of over Rs 100 crore, were first frozen last year by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) under provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act after it registered a criminal case against the accused taking cognisance of the 2011 Delhi Police FIR made on the complaint of duped investors.

"On a thorough perusal of the provisional attachment order, complaint, the FIR and the charge sheet, the investigations conducted by ED and the statements recorded... and on careful consideration of the arguments advanced on behalf of the complainant (ED) and defendants (Khaire and associates), undersigned comes to the prima facie conclusion that the defendants have committed the scheduled offences, generated proceeds of crime and laundered them.

"No doubt, the properties attached are proceeds of crime or value thereof and are involved in money laundering," the court of adjudicating authority of PMLA Mukesh Kumar said in its recent order.

The authority is the judicial body to decide on cases of strict enforcement action.