Nagpur, February 26 – The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has attached immovable properties worth Rs 3.35 crore in Nagpur belonging to a couple, who had defrauded two investors by promising to sell a property and arrange a loan from a foreign institution, an official said on Thursday.
The attached assets include three commercial shops and two plots, covering a total area of 10.37 acres, owned by Sachin Shatrugha Pandey and his family members, according to the ED's Nagpur Sub-Zonal Office.
The properties were provisionally attached under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002.
The ED initiated the investigation based on FIRs registered with the Dhantoli and Sitaburdi Police Stations of Nagpur against Pandey and his associates, who were involved in criminal activities under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), 1860, a statement said.
The ED investigation revealed that the accused, Sachin Pandey and his wife, Khushi, despite no longer having any stake in the two properties in Nagpur, had wilfully entered into an agreement with complainant Amit Kothari for the sale of the properties for Rs 2.5 crore and received Rs 2.2 crore in cash.
Subsequently, due to the failure to execute the deed transferring the properties to the complainant, the accused again entered into a cancellation agreement with the complainant, undertaking to return the money to the complainant by March 31, 2013, the ED statement said.
However, the accused deliberately failed to adhere to the terms of the agreement and failed to return the Rs 2.2 crore to the complainant, misappropriating the funds for personal gain, thereby causing wrongful loss to the complainant, the central probe agency said.
In another matter, the investigation revealed that Pandey and his associates induced Chandraprakash Wadhwani that they would arrange a loan of Rs 18 crore from a foreign institution without any security or credit by way of a Standby Letter of Credit (SBLC) through his company, Luft International, and took an amount of Rs 1.2 crore in cash from the complainant in the name of margin money.
The accused neither arranged the promised loan amount for the complainant nor returned the money taken in the guise of margin money, misappropriating Rs 1.2 crore for personal gain, thereby causing wrongful loss to the complainant, the ED added.
"The investigation conducted under the PMLA, 2002, has established that Pandey is a habitual offender, who not only defrauded the complainants herein but also many other innocent persons through various false promises," the ED statement said.
"Further investigation revealed that the funds received by Pandey and his associates were partly placed and layered in several bank accounts maintained in their names as well as in the names of their family members and entities," the ED said.
"From these bank accounts, an amount of Rs 90 lakh was diverted towards the purchase of residential flats in the project of Pioneer Group, Rs 20 lakh was used in the bank accounts of his associates, Swarnim Jaykumar Dixit, for further utilisation, and more than Rs 70 lakh was used to cover routine personal expenses," the central probe agency added.
The investigation revealed that the remaining cash was partly used in the medical treatment of his wife, Khushi, who was treated in India and abroad, and partly used to acquire another immovable property, the ED said.