Bhubaneswar: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) recently raided properties belonging to the Golden Land Developers Ltd at 19 locations in Odisha, Punjab, Chandigarh and Delhi under the provisions of Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002.
“During the search operations on February 8, various incriminating documents including property papers of 1500 acres, digital devices, Cash Rs 43.48 lakh in cash, bank balance worth Rs 64.22 lakh and Toyota Fortuner Car worth Rs 35 lakh were recovered and frozen/seized,” the ED said in a post on X on Saturday.
The raids were conducted at 10 places in Odisha, including Berhampur, Digpahandi, Chikiti and Bhubaneswar. Houses of its director, manager and other officials were also searched.
The investigative agency, which had initiated the investigation on basis of an FIR registered by the CBI, SPE, Kolkata under various sections of IPC 1860 against the firm, found that accused persons, entities and companies associated with it had raised huge amounts of money from the general public in the garb of real estate development. “They had floated illegal financial businesses/schemes of lump sum deposits, recurring deposits, RD/monthly investment schemes (MIS), YLY plan, etc. in the guise of plot booking without any approval of the regulatory authorities such as RBI, SEBI, ROC by alluring the depositors of higher returns against the deposits made in the company.”
Large-scale diversion of cash to sister concerns and to the accounts of directors and associates has also been unearthed.
Further investigation is underway, it added.
Notably, the Crime Branch had seized some assets of this chit fund company and Cuttack ADM auctioned landed property of the chit-fund company to the tune of 2 acres and 93 decimal in Chhatrapur and Chikiti tehsils of Ganjam district, respectively, in June 2016. Around 4.72 lakh applicants have applied to the state government for refund of their money.
