The Lucknow Zonal Office of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has provisionally attached properties worth Rs 29.11 crore under the provisions of Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in a money laundering case involving M/s Shine City Properties Ltd.

The ED said the immovable properties attached include a residential real-estate project worth Rs 25.99 crore, office space commercial property worth Rs 2.10 crore, and agricultural land worth Rs 1.01 crore.

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These properties were purchased/developed by Himanshu Kumar and his companies using the money collected from investors and layered and diverted by the Shine City promoters.

Himanshu Kumar was arrested by the ED on July 23.

The ED had initiated the investigation based on about 554 FIRs registered by the Uttar Pradesh Police against Rasheed Naseem and Shine City Group of Companies.

The ED investigation revealed that the accused persons, associates and promoters incorporated several companies and collected funds from the public in ponzi-pyramid scheme under the guise of investment in the real estate sector and other attractive schemes.

The ED investigation identified the fund trail and found that the money collected from the customers were layered, transferred and diverted to the close associates of the group. Himanshu Kumar was one of such close associate.

The funds so diverted were utilised by Himanshu Kumar for buying land, office space and developing residential projects. Consequently, the poor investors never got the return on their investment or promised lands.

Earlier, the ED had conducted search operations at 18 locations in Lucknow, Varanasi, Allahabad, Mumbai, and Delhi, and seized several digital devices, incriminating documents related to money laundering, and details of properties which were purchased with proceeds of crime.

The ED had arrested and conducted custodial interrogation of eight accused persons, namely Shashi Bala, Abhishek Singh, Durga Prasad, Udhav Singh, Ashif Naseem, Amitabh Srivastava, Meera Srivastava, and Himanshu Kumar.

Till now, the ED said that four charge sheets have been filed in connection with the case and a special court has taken cognizance of two of them.

The quantum of total attachment made so far in this case stands at Rs 189.39 crore (approximately).