The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday said it has attached assets of late Congress leader Ahmed Patel’s son-in-law, actors Dino Morea and Sanjay Khan and DJ Aqeel in a money laundering case related to alleged bank fraud.
The case pertains to Gujarat-based pharmaceutical company Sterling Biotech Group and its absconding key promoter brothers Nitin Sandesara and Chetan Sandesara.
The ED alleges that this is a bigger case than the fraud committed by fugitive diamantaire Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi from Punjab National Bank (PNB) as the amount of fraud in it is close to Rs 16000 crore. He said that a group of banks led by Andhra Bank had been cheated. The fraud from PNB was close to Rs 13,400 crore.
The ED said that under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), four separate preliminary orders for attachment of properties of four persons have been issued. The value of the property is Rs 8.79 crore.
The central probe agency said in a statement that out of this, Khan’s attached assets are worth Rs 3 crore, Dino Morea’s assets are worth Rs 1.4 crore and that of Aqeel Abdulkhaleel Bachuali, popularly known as DJ Aqeel, is worth Rs 1.98 crore. While the property of Patel’s son-in-law Irfan Ahmed Siddiqui is 2.41 crores is Rs.
The agency said the seized assets included three vehicles, multiple bank accounts, shares and mutual funds. In the past, the investigating agency has questioned Siddiqui, Morea (45) and Aqeel (44) in this case. The ED had recorded the statement of Sunil Yadav, an employee of the Sandesara family, where he told the agency that Siddiqui was “in possession” of a house in Delhi’s Vasant Vihar which allegedly belonged to Chetan Sandesara.