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The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has confiscated ₹34.7 lakh available in a bank account of M/s Udayanidhi Stalin Foundation as the NGO allegedly received proceeds of a crime amounting to ₹1 crore in a case registered against Chennai-based Kallal Group and six others including its directors.
This is besides the provisional attachment the investigating agency did of various immovable properties across Tamil Nadu, valued at ₹36.3 crore. The attachment orders were issued on May 25, ED offficially stated.
“The trustees of the.. Foundation failed to explain the rational for the above receipt from the parties involved in the case,” ED alleged in a statement issued on Saturday. The total proceeds of crime calculated by the ED in the case is around ₹300 crore of which immovable properties is valued at ₹36.3 crore. The component of movable properties in the form of bank account with available balance is to the tune of ₹34.7 lakhs which too have been attached, said the ED.
The agency initiated investigations on the basis of an FIR registered by Central Crime Branch-I, Chennai, on allegations by Gaurav Chachra, director of a foreign company who stated that he was defrauded of ₹114.37 crore by the Kallal Group and its Directors/founders -- Saravanan Palaniappan, Vijaykumaran, Aravinth Raj and Vijay Ananth, along with Lakshmi Muthuraman and Preetha Vijayananth.
Chachra is the director of M/s Pettigo Commercio Internacional Lda, a subsidiary of the UK-based Lyca Group which has significant business presence in India, like Lyca Productions and Lyca Hotels.
“Investigations conducted by the ED revealed that the fraud is actually of an amount of ₹300 crore as the Lyca Group had also made other investments/loans to the accused group and its entities without any due diligence or rationale,” the agency statement read.
The ED followed it with searches at the premises of both the accused and complainants’ related entities on April 27 and May 16, 2023, which led to the discovery of incriminating evidence in the form of digital evidence, documents, properties, suspicious cash and hawala transactions.
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