The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has provisionally attached 75 immovable properties, including 67 windmills, valued at ₹113.32 crore, belonging to the Chennai-based Surana Group of Companies under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002.
This attachment is in connection with three cases of alleged bank fraud to the tune of ₹3,986 crore of the principal outstanding amount due to the public sector banks.
The ED initiated a money-laundering investigation on the basis of three FIRs filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation, BF&SB, Bengaluru, against Surana Industries Limited, Surana Power Limited and Surana Corporation Limited. The probe revealed that the three companies defrauded banks by floating a web of shell companies wherein they appointed their employees and the relatives of the promoters as directors, proprietors and partners.
The companies indulged in paper transactions with them without any goods. The credit capital of the banks were round-tripped/layered to the personal accounts of the promoters by projecting the bank funds as unsecured loans from their associate shell companies. The same funds were then infused into the main group companies as part of the promoters contribution. The motive was to enhance the drawing limits.
The ED also found that the Surana Group had companies in Cayman Island as well as in British Virgin Islands in the name of dummy directors. It had allegedly siphoned off money to these companies. And for this, it established four companies in Singapore and exported goods to them. The money received from these Singapore companies were written off in the books in India. Some of the diverted funds were used to purchase properties in the names of benami persons and companies.
Dinesh Chand Surana, MD of Surana Industries Limited and Surana Power Ltd; Vijay Raj Surana, MD of Surana Corporation Limited; and two dummy directors of the shell companies V.P. Anand and I. Prabhakaran were arrested last month and remanded in judicial custody. Further investigations are in progress.
