ED seizes `36.3cr assets in TN, bank deposits of Udayanidhi Foundation

New Delhi, May 27: The Enforcement Directorate on Saturday said it has attached immovable assets worth more than `36 crore across Tamil Nadu and `34.7 lakh kept in the bank account of Udayanidhi Stalin Foundation as part of a money laundering investigation.

The probe, being conducted under various sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), is against the Kallal Group and the UK-based Lyca group and its Indian companies Lyca Productions and Lyca Hotels, it said.

The ED recently conducted searches against the two entities in April and early this month.

An investigation was launched based on an FIR registered by Central crime branch-I, Chennai where it was alleged that the complainant Gaurav Chachra, director of Pettigo Commercio Internacional Lda, had been defrauded of `114.37 crore by the Kallal Group and its directors/founders like Saravanan Palaniappan, Vijaykumaran, Aravinth Raj and Vijay Ananth apart from Lakshmi Muthuraman and Preetha Vijayananth, the ED said.

Pettigo is a subsidiary of the UK-based Lyca Group, having a significant presence in India in the form of Lyca Productions, Lyca Hotels, etc. Probe found that fraud is “actually of an amount of `300 crore as Lyca Group had also made other investments/loans to accused group and its entities without any due diligence.”

This resulted into searches against both the accused and complainants and “led to the discovery of various incriminating evidence in the form of digital evidence, documents, properties, suspicious cash and hawala transactions which are still under the ED scanner and investigations,” the federal agency said.

In order to secure part of the proceeds of crime, the ED on May 25 provisionally attached various immovable properties valued at `36.3 crore and `34.7 lakh available in the bank account of Udayanidhi Stalin Foundation as “it received proceeds of crime” of `1 crore, it said.