 "ED attaches Aamby Valley land worth Rs 1,460 crore in Sahara case")
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has provisionally attached approximately 707 acres of land in Pune’s Lonavala, on which luxurious Aamby Valley City was built by the embattled Sahara Group.
The probe agency said on Tuesday that this land, whose market value it pegged at approximately ₹1,460 crore, was allegedly purchased by the funds diverted from Sahara group entities. Most of it was Benami transaction, masking the identity of the real buyers.
The land has been attached under the provisions of Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002 in the case registered against Sahara India and its group entities. The residential society was then touted as “India’s first planned hill city”.
ED had launched an investigation on the basis of three first information reports (FIRs) registered against M/s Humara India Credit Co-operative Society Ltd. (HICCSL) and others by Odisha, Bihar and Rajasthan Police.
Over 500 FIRs have been registered against the Sahara Group entities and related persons, with over 300 of them filed for offences that are scheduled under the PMLA, 2002 on the allegations that depositors were cheated into depositing funds, forced to redeposit funds without their consent and were denied their maturity payments despite demanding maturity payout several time.
ED said that its investigation revealed that Sahara Group was running a Ponzi scheme through various entities.
“The group has cheated the depositors and agents by alluring them with high returns and commissions respectively and utilised the funds collected in a non-regulated manner without any information or control of the depositors,” ED said in its statement.
ED further said that these companies avoided repayment and instead forced/allured the depositors to redeposit their maturity amount, switching/transferring deposits from one scheme to other scheme and entity.
“In order to camouflage non repayment, the group manipulated the books of accounts to show repayment in scheme, treating reinvestment as fresh investment in another scheme,” the ED said.
And, in order to perpetuate the Ponzi scheme, the group entities continued to accept fresh deposits despite not being able to repay the existing maturity amount.
“Part of the collected money was siphoned and diverted for creating benami assets, for their personal expenses and lavish lifestyle. Investigation also revealed that they have also disposed off the assets of Sahara group and received part of payment in undisclosed cash in lieu of sale of land thereby denying the depositors off their rightful claim,” ED said.
During ED investigations, statements of various persons including depositors, agents, employees of Sahara Group and other related persons have been recorded under Section 50 of PMLA.
Also, searches were conducted under Section 17 of PMLA wherein unexplained cash of ₹2.98 crore was confiscated.