Bhubaneswar: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has seized a high-end BMW car belonging to conman Jyoti Ranjan Beura alias Golden Baba from Bhubaneswar on Thursday.
The car was found in the parking space of a private hospital in Odisha capital and the central investigating agency seized the vehicle, sources said. The car reportedly did not have a registration number plate.
The recovered car has been valued at around Rs one crore. The vehicle was seized by the ED as per the provision of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA).
Earlier on April 27, 2023 the had seized an Audi car of the conman from CRPF area in capital city. The Audi car has an estimated value of 75 lakh rupees. However, it was a secondhand car, which the fraudster bought for Rs 51 lakh.
The ED which is probing the financial transactions of Beura was reportedly chasing the fraudster who has been absconding after being released on bail around three years ago. He had earlier been arrested in a multi-crore rupees fraud case.
The Commissionerate Police had on December 31, 2018 arrested the fraudster from Chandrasekharpur in Bhubaneswar for allegedly duping a resident of Keonjhar district. Subsequently, he was out on bail and has been on the run since then.
He had also swindled money from several companies on the pretext of sanctioning loans from finance companies. The Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of Odisha Crime Branch had earlier probed two of his financial fraud, amounting to Rs 12.04 crore and Rs 4.05 crore respectively. He had allegedly taken 12 cheques totaling to Rs 12.04 crore from a mining company with the promise to get a loan of Rs 110 crore sanctioned.
The EOW had also raided the house of the Golden Baba and the seized documents revealed that he had signed an agreement to provide financial assistance of Rs 200 crore to a private hospital at Thane in Mumbai, Rs 300 crore to the Engineering Construction Ltd in Hyderabad and Rs 50 crore to the JK Medical System in Bhubaneswar through fake documents. Apart from this, he had an agreement with 4 to 5 companies for which he had collected Rs 100 crore through the post-dated cheques.
The EOW had also had frozen his seven bank accounts having deposits of Rs 51 lakh. A locker containing nearly 1.5 kg gold worth Rs 40 lakh was also seized. He reportedly owned four luxury cars.
A total of 19 cases are pending against Beura in various police stations in the state.
