ED attaches Pearl Agro assets worth over Rs 10,000 crore

New Delhi: In the single biggest attachment of properties, ED on Wednesday said it has attached assets worth over Rs 10,000 crore of Pearl Agro Corp Ltd (PACL) in a money laundering case. These properties are located in Punjab's SAS Nagar, Rupnagar, Zirakpur and Mohali.

With this, the value of total attachments against PACL and its promoter Nirmal Singh Bhangoo and his family exceeds Rs 17,600 crore. The last biggest attachment was also against this group when the agency, in Jan this year, attached 37 properties worth over Rs 2,000 crore, including a prime plot worth over Rs 1,500 crore near Jaipur airport and others in Ludhiana.

The PACL, a multi-level marketing company that promised allotment of plots to lakhs of people across the country, tricked investors and regulators alike for close to two decades and managed to collect more than Rs 48,000 crore, siphoning most of this money to purchase assets in India and overseas, according to an assessment by the ED.

"In most cases, land was never delivered, and approximately Rs 48,000 crore remains unpaid to investors," ED said. The scheme involved use of multiple front entities and reverse sale transactions to conceal fraud and generate wrongful gains, it added.

The case is based on a probe ordered by the Supreme Court and a directive issued to SEBI to constitute a panel to dispose of the land bought by PACL and distribute the sale proceeds to the investors.

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