The Enforcement Directorate (ED) Wednesday said it has attached assets worth Rs 64.48 lakh in connection with its money laundering probe in a land scam case in Rajasthan's border town of Bikaner.
The agency said it has issued a provisional order for attachment of assets belonging to 12 people and a firm named Dauphin Developers Pvt Ltd "who purchased fraudulent land and earned profit from the deals".
"These 12 individuals and company purchased this fraudulent land from main fraudsters and their accomplice sold it further and earned profit from it which was legally not available to them. This is nothing but proceeds of crime under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
"The attached assets include bank deposits amounting to Rs 63,35,500 and 12.5 bigha agricultural land in Bikaner," the agency said in a statement.
It added that the total value of the attached assets, under the latest order, is Rs 64.48 lakh.
The ED probe in the case is related to the purchase of 275 bigha land allegedly by a company said to be linked to Congress President Rahul Gandhi's brother-in-law Robert Vadra and others in Bikaner's Kolayat area, few years back.
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The land was meant for allotment to the people who were displaced due to the creation of a firing range for the Army in Bikaner that is located along the India-Pakistan international border.
The ED, till now, has attached assets totalling Rs 1.82 crore and they are in the name of government officials and others in connection with this case.
It had registered a criminal case in this matter in 2015, taking cognisance of FIRs filed by the state police after the local tehsildar complained about alleged forgery.
The agency, in this case, had also issued notices to the firm that has been linked to Vadra.
However, the ED has not mentioned Vadra's name in its FIR filed under the PMLA. The FIR names some Rajasthan government officials and the "land mafia".
Vadra had denied any wrongdoing and the Congress party had called the action "sheer political vendetta".