Enforcement Directorate (ED) seized four luxury cars, valued at about ₹4 crore, jewellery worth ₹14.5 lakh, and cash of ₹4.5 lakh after carrying out searches on July 25 at 11 locations spread over Samalkha, Gurugram and Delhi belonging to a real estate firm owned by Haryana Congress MLA Dharam Singh Chhoker who is alleged to have collected crores from people but did not deliver houses promised to them.

The directors/promoters of Mahira Group, the new avatar of erstwhile M/s Sai Aaina Farms Private Limited, Dharam Singh Chhoker, Sikander Singh and Vikas Chhoker and other key employees “remained absent” during the ED search and have not joined the investigation till now, the agency stated in a statement to media. The ED said that orders to freeze offices and bank accounts of Mahira Group were issued during the search operations.

The agency said its investigations revealed that erstwhile Mahira Group and other group companies siphoned off home buyers’ money by booking fake construction expenditures in group entities. According to FIRs registered by Gurugram police which ED took over for probing the money laundering from the affordable housing scheme, M/s Sai Aaina Farms allegedly indulged in cheating and forgery. They collected about ₹360 crore from 1,497 buyers on the promise of providing homes at Sector 68, Gurugram.

The real estate firm failed to deliver the houses and missed multiple deadlines forcing home buyers to hold protests for the last one year against the Mahira Group seeking delivery of dwellings at the earliest, said the ED in a statement on Monday.

“Cash equivalent to the fake purchases was received back from the entities providing fake bills/ invoices by the directors/promoters of Mahira Group, which was used for personal gains. Several personal family expenditure were also booked as construction/ business expenditure in group entities,” charged the agency.

The directors/promoters also diverted home buyers money to other group entities as loans, which remained outstanding for years, for personal gains, alleged the ED.

“Preliminary investigations shows that the Directors/ Promoters of Mahira Group siphoned off about Rs. 107.5 Crore [fake expenses to the extent of ₹57 crore and loans to group entities to the extent of ₹50.50 crore] from M/s Sai Aaina Farms Pvt. Ltd. [belonging to home buyers of Sector 68 housing project] alone,” the agency alleged.

The agency stated that investigations with respect to financial transactions of the other four affordable housing projects are in progress.