A 2.49 acre land valued at more than Rs 30 crore belonging to the sister-in-law of Tamil Nadu minister V Senthil Balaji has been frozen as part of an ongoing money laundering investigation against him, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) said on Thursday.
According to the agency, several of the attached properties were registered in the name of shell companies and persons acting as proxies for Chatterjee.
According to a complaint from Bank of Baroda, the conspirators allegedly cheated a consortium of bank loans of Rs 3,695 crore. The scam was earlier estimated at around Rs 800 crore.
A flavour-of-the-season approach does not work in investing, suggests Deepesh Raghaw.
ED sleuths have recovered around Rs 50 crore in cash, along with jewellery, from her two flats in south-west Kolkata and Belghoria.
The alleged scam pertains to the period when Lalu Prasad was the railway minister in the UPA-1 government at the Centre.
Dharavi resident advocate Sandip Katake alleged the project would be the world's biggest land scam.
The middle-aged woman, Shubra Ghorui, is said to have harboured anger against Chatterjee after the seizure of around Rs 50 crore in cash, along with jewellery, by the ED.
The 69-year-old leader, who is in the custody of the Enforcement Directorate, was taken to ESI hospital at Joka on the southern outskirts of Kolkata for a medical-check up during the day.
During the raids, Rs 53 lakh, $1,900, about 540 grams of gold and bullion and 1.5 kg of gold jewellery were seized, sources in agency said and added that one of the locations searched was a house in south Delhi where Lalu Prasad Yadav's son and Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav was present.
The venue for Saturday's meeting was shifted at the last minute from the headquarters of the India Banks' Association in Cuffe Parade to avoid media glare.
The industry body has issued two advisories in an attempt to restore jewellers credibility in the wake of the Rs 12,000-crore PNB-Nirav Modi scam, and recent defaults by two domestic jewellers - Goodwin and Rasiklal.
The diamond merchant wanted in India on charges of fraud and money laundering in the estimated $2-billion Punjab National Bank scam case, lost his legal battle against extradition as a UK judge ruled that he does have a case to answer before the Indian courts.
The Reserve Bank has permitted PNB to make provisions against the fraud amount.
The Reserve Bank of India also banned with immediate effect issuance of letters of comfort which, like LoUs, are used by importers to fund their overseas purchases.
How does Emraan Hashmi pass the time when he's waiting for the lift?
The ED had launched raids on Friday at multiple locations linked to Prasad's family members including that of his son and Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav in Delhi.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday conducted raids in three locations in and around Kolkata and again recovered large stacks of cash from a flat linked to Arpita Mukherjee, considered a close associate of arrested West Bengal Industry Minister Partha Chatterjee.
The total number of arrests by the CBI has risen to six -- four PNB officials, a retired employee of the bank, and an authorsied signatory of Nirav Modi's company -- after Monday's development.
Banks have become more vigilant over the past two weeks, with many more officials involved in loan approval and disbursal.
Rose Valley is one of the biggest money businesses after Sahara.
Noisy protests disrupted the both houses of the Parliament on the first day of the second part of the budget session
District Judge Marie Mallon said there were substantial grounds to believe that Nirav Modi would fail to surrender if granted bail.
Confidence had ebbed in the last few years due to default by some errant domestic retailers and exporters. Moreover, many jewellers are believed to have diverted the fund collected through monthly deposit schemes to pay 'mark-to-market' margins on various loans.
Given how everything has played out, Mehul Choksi, now 62, achieved all that he wanted but for all the wrong reasons, says Pavan Lall.
Firestar Diamond, which on its website states that its operations span the US, Europe, the Middle East, the Far East and India, blamed liquidity and supply chain challenges.
The legal procedure of extradition of an accused takes its own time and Indian investigators, both from the CBI and ED, are tracking the case.
Modi, a diamond jeweller whose designs have been worn by Hollywood stars, is now believed to be running a new business, which describes itself on the UK's Companies House register as a wholesale trader in watches and jewellery and a retailer of watches and jewellery in specialised stores.
Despite recent developments that have accelerated the impending extradition of fugitive diamantaire Nirav Modi, who has been in custody in London's Wandsworth Prison for over two years, the last month has seen his uncle Mehul Choksi dominate the headlines instead with his circus-like exhibition in the Caribbean that has involved red herrings such as a "girlfriend", to whom his wife seemed to have no objection, and possibly concocted stories of being kidnapped and manhandled. Choksi was widely regarded as Modi's Svengali in Mumbai when he returned from Belgium to expand his business. He had fled to Antigua well before news around how Modi finagled thousands of crores from Punjab National Bank (PNB) and other institutions through a series of allegedly coordinated and fraudulent actions involving letters of undertaking, or LoUs.
'Dasgupta misused his official position and manipulated TRP of specific news channels broadcast by ARG Outlier Media Pvt Ltd such as Republic Bharat Hindi and Republic TV English,' the police alleged in its remand note.
The simplicity of the model that was the original, which allowed it to glide with grace, has been foregone, observes Rohit Sathish Nair.
The Enforcement Directorate on Wednesday continued raids for the seventh day as it visited 17 locations across the country, including four shell companies in Mumbai, even as the Income Tax department attached assets worth Rs 145 crore in the alleged Rs 11,400-crore Punjab National Bank fraud.
His brother Nishal, a Belgian citizen, also left the country on January 1, while wife Ami, a US citizen, and business partner Mehul Choksi, the Indian promoter of Gitanjali jewellery chain, departed on January 6, the officials said.
The ED conducted further searches at 21 locations across India.
Former India pacer S Sreesanth tweeted this picture on Twitter to give us the first glimpse of his wife.
'I was shocked by the kidnapping episode. I could have lost my life.'
The assets have been attached as part of five separate orders issued by the central probe agency under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, it said.
'It could take at least a couple of years for his case to go through the entire run of the British judiciary.'
Taking to Twitter, Gandhi posted, "The scamster's escape formula: La(Mo) + Ni(Mo) ---(with) Na(Mo)---> Bha(Go)", while using the hashtag "#ModiRobsIndia".
The possibility of the slowdown affecting more players is greater if the industry doesn't get access to easier finance in the next six to eight months.
