The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has attached ₹315 crore worth seventy assets such as parcels of land, windmills, silver and diamond jewellery, and bullion in a bank money laundering case against former National Congress Party (NCP) MP from Maharashtra Ishwarlal Shankarlal Jain Lalwani and his family members.
Ishwarlal Shankarlal Jain Lalwani (77) is the promoter of Rajmal Lakhichand Jewellers Pvt Ltd, R L Gold Pvt Ltd, and Manraj Jewellers Pvt Ltd, among others, the ED told the media on Sunday. As per a provisional order issued by the ED under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) on Friday, 70 immovable assets attached are located in Maharashtra’s Jalgaon, Mumbai, Thane, Sillod, and Kutch in Gujarat.
Other than that, some windmills, silver and diamond jewellery, bullion, and Indian currency were attached too, said the agency. Their value in total comes to ₹315.60 crore in the bank fraud case. “The attached assets include the benami properties acquired by the promoters, Ishwarlal Shankarlal Jain Lalwani, Manish Ishwarlal Jain Lalwani, and others,” the agency charged.
The ED took up three FIRs registered by the CBI to start the probe under the PMLA. The CBI alleged that these companies and their directors and promoters siphoned off loan money of more than ₹352.49 crore sought from the State Bank of India. The ED alleged that the company promoters submitted “fake” financials to avail themselves of the SBI loans.
“The promoters also engaged in round-tripping of transactions to inflate the financials and booked bogus sale purchase transactions in the books of accounts of the accused companies to siphon off the loan proceeds for investments in real estate properties, in collusion with the auditors of the companies,” the anti-money laundering agency charged.
Before issuing provisional attachment orders, the ED carried out searches in this case in August.