The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has provisionally attached properties valued at around Rs 113 crore of Amit Katyal, an alleged associate of RJD supremo Lalu Prasad’s family, and his realty firms in a money laundering case, officials said on Thursday.
The case pertains to “siphoning and illegal diversion” of plot buyers’ money by Amit Katyal, Krrish Realtech and Brahma City “without having any licence from DTCP in its name”.
The ED initiated an investigation based on various FIRs registered by the Gurugram Police and Economic Offences Wing (EOW), New Delhi, under various sections of IPC against Krrish Realtech, Brahma City, Amit Katyal, Rajesh Katyal and their associates.
It is alleged that Krrish Realtech and Amit Katyal, involved in the real estate business, have duped the investors in the guise of allotment of plots on which no license existed and illegally diverted hundreds of crores of funds of such plot buyers abroad through criminal conspiracy, misrepresentation, fraud and cheating.
The ED had conducted search operations under Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002, in March, and incriminating evidence of Amit Katyal, Rajesh Katyal and others were seized, which revealed more than Rs 200 crore taken from plot buyers have been invested abroad in hotel-cum-luxury real estate project in Srilanka and St. Kitts & Nevis to obtain passport through shell companies whose beneficial ownership has been traced to Amit Katyal’s son Krishan Katyal, the agency said in a statement.
It said the attached properties included 70 acres of land in Sector 63 and 65 in Gurugram, five flats in a real estate project named Krrish Province Estates and seven flats in Krrish Florence Estate in Gurugram held in the names of “benami” directors and two flats in Mumbai held in a “benami” company.
Besides, a luxurious farmhouse at Jonapur and a commercial property in New Delhi, fixed deposit receipts of associates to the tune of Rs 27 crore where Katyal was found to have “parked” the proceeds of crime in the names of companies and key individuals including close relatives, were also among the assets attached.
Further investigation is under progress.