The Enforcement Directorate has seized assets worth ₹216 crore of the Chennai based Southern Agrifurane Industries Pvt Ltd (SAIPL) and its promoter/director MGM Maran (former chairman of Tamil Nadu Mercantile Bank) and MGM Anand, under the provisions of Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), 1999.

The seized assets are in the form of land and buildings owned by SAIPL in Tamil Nadu and Telangana; shares owned by Maran in TMB; shares of Indian companies SAIPL, MGM Entertainment Pvt Ltd and Anand Transport Pvt Ltd owned by Anand.

A release by the ED said that SAIPL was found to have siphoned off Indian funds of ₹216 crore aboard under the garb of Overseas Direct Investments (ODI) by providing false declarations to its authorised dealer bank (AD); by way of structuring transactions in a manner to send outward remittances without any bonafides and with sole objective to remove funds from India in the name of ODI without there being any genuine business reasons for the Indian company SAIPL. The company siphoned off around 85 per cent of its entire net worth abroad.

ED issued a notice to AD bank, which conducted an Internal Investigation in the matter and based on the findings, recommended the case to be concluded as ‘fraud’.

Maran surrendered the Indian Passport in December 2016 and took ‘Cyprus Passport’ to become Cyprus Citizen. In another FEMA investigation, he remained totally non-compliant to the proceedings and did not attend ED office even once despite multiple summons and did not submit any of his foreign assets details, resulting in another seizure order of his Indian assets worth ₹293 crore in December 2021, the release said.

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