New Delhi:
The Enforcement Directorate has seized shares worth Rs 1.19 crore of a Goa-based businessman who allegedly cheated foreigners in the name of selling them immovable properties in the coastal state, the central agency said on Thursday.
The action has been taken against Sunil Kumar. He holds shares in his firm Sanatan Financers and Real Estates Pvt Ltd and also allegedly holds two undisclosed assets in the United Kingdom, it said.
His shares were seized under Section 37 A of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) that empowers the ED to seize assets in India whose value is equivalent to any foreign exchange, foreign security or immovable property of an entity.
The ED said Kumar was ‘illegally holding’ the two foreign assets — Flat no 30, Saint Lukes Court, Perry Close, Stoke-on-Trent, ST1 3RD I, United Kingdom, and House no 45, Ivy House Road, Stoke-on-Trent, ST1 3NT, UK.
The two properties are worth 1,26,000 British Pounds (over Rs 1.2 crore) and were purchased ‘in contravention’ of the FEMA, the agency claimed.
The ED said documents of these assets were recovered when sleuths raided the premises of Kumar’s company in January this year.
‘Sunil Kumar has been illegally holding two immovable properties in his name in the UK and the same were acquired and held outside India in contravention of Section 4 of FEMA.’ ‘Hence, the equivalent value of the properties of Sunil Kumar in India, which is shares held by him in Sanatan Financers and Real Estates Pvt Ltd amounting to Rs 1.19 crores, have been seized under Section 37 A of FEMA,’ it said.
Kumar, his company and others were booked by the ED under the PMLA after analysing a Goa Police FIR that was filed against them on charges of cheating foreign nationals ‘by illegally collecting funds from them in the guise of selling property’.
