The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has provisionally attached various immovable properties across Tamil Nadu valued at Rs. 36.3 Crore and Rs 34.7 lakh in the account of Udhayanidhi Stalin Foundation in connection with a money laundering investigation related Kallal Group and others. The probe is being conducted under various sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA)
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Saturday said that they have attached immovable properties worth Rs 36.3 crore and seized Rs 34.7 lakh lying in the bank account of the Udayanidhi Stalin Foundation in Tamil Nadu. The firm is accused of receiving the proceeds of crime amounting to Rs 1 crore.
The probe, being conducted under various sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), is against the Kallal Group and the UK-based Lyca group and its Indian companies Lyca Productions and Lyca Hotels, it said.
The ED recently conducted searches against the two entities in April and early this month.
The search operations led to the recovery of various incriminating evidences in form of digital evidences, documents, properties, suspicious cash and hawala transactions which is still under the the ED’s scanner.
The probe found that the fraud is “actually of an amount of Rs 300 crore as the Lyca Group had also made other investments/loans to the accused group and its entities without any due diligence or rationale.”
This resulted into searches against both the accused and complainants and “led to the discovery of various incriminating evidence in the form of digital evidence, documents, properties, suspicious cash and hawala transactions which are still under the ED scanner and investigations,” the federal agency said.
In order to secure part of the proceeds of crime, the ED on May 25 provisionally attached various immovable properties across Tamil Nadu valued at Rs 36.3 crore and Rs 34.7 lakh available in the bank account of Udayanidhi Stalin Foundation as “it received proceeds of crime” of Rs 1 crore, it said.
“The trustees of the said foundation failed to explain the rationale for the above receipt from the parties involved in the case,” it said.
Lyca Productions is an entertainment company engaged in the production and distribution of Tamil and Hindi movies and it was in the news recently for the two-part Tamil epic films Ponniyin Selvan: I and Ponniyin Selvan
The trustees of the above said foundation failed to explain the rational for the above receipt from the parties involved in the case. Thus total Proceeds of Crime in the said case is around 300 crore of which immovable properties valued at Rs 36.3 crore and movable properties in form of bank account with available balance of Rs 34.7 lakh have been attached.
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