ED attaches assets worth Rs 293 crore in Rose Valley chit fund scam case

Kolkata: The Enforcement Directorate on Friday attached assets worth Rs 293 crore in connection with the Rose Valley chit fund scam case in which thousands of people were allegedly cheated in West Bengal and Odisha, officials said.

The central probe agency's regional office here issued a provisional attachment order under sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and with this fresh action, the total attachment in this case stands at Rs 1,950 crore (market value).

"The latest attachment order is on assets worth Rs 293 crore (market value)," senior officials in the agency said.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had registered a criminal FIR against the firm, its Chairman Gautam Kundu and others in 2014 under the PMLA.

Kundu was arrested by the agency from here in 2015 and he is currently in judicial custody.

Multiple charge sheets have been filed in the courts in Kolkata and Bhubaneswar by the ED in this case. The group had allegedly floated a total of 27 companies for running the alleged chit fund operations out of which only half-a-dozen were active.

It is alleged that the firm had floated the scheme by promising inflated returns on investments between 8 and 27 per cent to gullible investors in various states.

The company had allegedly promised astronomical returns to depositors on land properties and assets and bookings done in the real estate sector. It is alleged that the company had made "cross investments" in its various sister firms to suppress its liabilities towards investors.

The SEBI had probed the company before the ED and the CBI registered cases against the group. The ED has pegged the total volume of the alleged irregularities at Rs 15,000 crore.

An attachment order under PMLA laws is aimed to deprive the accused from getting benefits of their ill-gotten wealth and it gets confirmed after an order by the Adjudicating
Authority of the said Act.