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Real estate assets, farm lands, flats and many other such high-value properties worth crores of rupees were procured by the accused by "laundering" genuine investor funds of the scam-hit National Spot Exchange Limited (NSEL).
A charge-sheet filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) into the alleged multi-crore financial irregularities of NSEL found that a Mumbai-based firm, one of the prime accused in the Rs 5,600-crore payment crisis scam, was deploying a clever modus operandi of "claiming the investment in real estate purchased in the name of third party as unsecured loan".
The agency which is probing the case under provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) had recorded in its previous charge-sheet that the same trick was used by other accused to cheat NSEL investors by purchasing high-end vehicles, posh villas, plots, shares in beach-side hotels and vast tracts of agricultural land to perpetrate the scam.
In the latest charge-sheet filed against the firm, Aastha Minmet India Pvt Ltd, accessed by PTI, the agency said it has gathered evidence which reveals "that the funds received from the settlement accounts with NSEL by the group were utilised for procurement of real estate, agricultural land, flats etc."
The probe agency, in January this year, attached a number of immovable assets of the firm worth Rs 15.41 crore under PMLA which aims to deprive the accused the benefits of his or her ill-gotten wealth.
The firm, however in its submissions, said it acted at all times as per the "agreement" with the NSEL and it never misrepresented the NSEL or the investors.
