ED attaches Rs 124 cr worth assets of Surana Group in bank loan fraud

Assets worth about Rs 124 crore that were in possession of various entities linked to the Chennai-based Surana Group of companies have been attached in connection with a money laundering investigation related to three alleged bank loan frauds worth a total Rs 3,986 crore, the Enforcement Directorate said Wednesday.

A provisional order under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) has been issued to attach 78 immovable properties, it said in a statement.

The agency had attached assets of a similar value earlier in this case and with the latest order, the total attachment in the case stands at Rs 248.98 crore.

The money laundering probe stems from three CBI FIRs filed against the accused in 2020 that alleged that three Surana Group companies, along with their promoters, directors and unidentified individuals, indulged in misappropriation and criminal breach of trust, manipulation of books of accounts through fictitious entities and routing of funds through shell (dummy) companies.

The CBI complaint charged that the accused siphoned off funds from the company's accounts for their personal gains, causing loss to the tune of Rs 3,986 crore to the public sector banks.

The Surana group is into manufacturing and sale of gold jewellery.

The ED alleged that the accused "created a web of shell companies and the dummy directors of these shell companies were either the relatives/persons from ancestral village of Surana family or the employees of Surana group of companies".

"The transactions of the three main group companies were routed through those dummy/shell companies and thereafter the monies were siphoned off to other purposes including purchasing properties through layering and also obtained benami properties in the name of those shell companies," the agency alleged.

Surana group of companies/promoters incorporated several companies in Cayman Islands as well as British Virgin Islands in the name of "dummy" directors and siphoned off money to park in those companies through four "dummy" companies located in Singapore, it said.

The ED arrested four people in this case including two promoters of Surana group and two alleged shell company directors.

They were Dinesh Chand Surana and Vijay Raj Surana, both managing directors-cum-promoters of Surana Industries Limited, Surana Power Ltd and Surana Corporation Ltd and P Anand and I Prabhakaran, alleged dummy directors of shell companies, the agency said.