Fugitive jeweller Mehul Choksi’s Forty-one properties worth Rs. 1,210 crore attached by the Enforcement Directorate are money laundering assets, a designated PMLA authority said.
In February this year, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) had provisionally attached Choksi’s properties. The properties includes 15 flats and 17 office premises in Mumbai, a mall in Kolkata, a four-acre farmhouse in Alibaug and 231 acres of land at locations like Nashik, Nagpur, Panvel in Maharashtra and Villupuram in Tamil Nadu.
ALSO READ: Uttar Pradesh rains claim 16 lives, leaves 12 injured
Confirming that the properties provisionally attached are all involved in money laundering, a Member (Law) of the Adjudicating Authority of the PMLA, Tushar V Shah ordered that their attachment should continue. ‘ I, therefore, hereby confirm the attachment of properties…and order that the said attachment shall continue during investigation for a period not exceeding ninety days or the pendency of proceedings relating to any offence under the PMLA before a court and become final after an order of confiscation is passed by the special court,’ he said.
According to the officials, the ED will now move to seize the mentioned properties and put up its possession signages at these locations.
A provisional order for attachment of these assets as part of its criminal probe against Choksi has been issued by the central probe agency.
Choksi along with his nephew Nirav Modi and others are being investigated by the ED in relation with the Punjab National Bank scam that came into light earlier this year. The band alleged that Choksi and others cheated the nationalised bank to the tune of over Rs.12,000 crore.