52 immovable properties worth Rs 32.37 crores, which are spread across Telangana and Andhra Pradesh in the Agri Gold Ponzi Scheme fraud case, have been attached by the Enforcement Directorate.
In December 2020, Rs 4,109.31 crore was also attached by ED in the case. The present attachment has been done on the identification of new properties during the course of the investigation, which has made the total value of the properties that are attached to the case to Rs 4,141.68 crores.
Based on the FIRs lodged in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Karnataka against the Agri Gold Group led by Avva Venkata Rama Rao, a money-laundering investigation was initiated by the financial probe agency. Allegedly, Rao ran a fraudulent collective investment scheme in the guise of a real estate business, for which more than 130 companies were floated.
ED stated “Agri Gold Group collected deposits from the public with the promise of providing developed plots, farmlands, or withdrawals at a high rate of return on maturity or pre-term. Thousands of commission agents were engaged to lure people with various schemes for hefty commissions and managed to collect Rs 6,380 crore from 32,026,628 investor accounts. In the end, the gullible investors neither got plots nor could recover their deposits.”
“The modus operandi of the schemes of the Agri Gold Group companies was that they would lure the public to join as depositors in their schemes, either directly or through agents, under the pretext of a real estate deal”, according to the officials.
Allegedly the deposit agreements did not mention either the actual market value of the land or its location, its boundaries, survey numbers, or the layout permissions.
An official said, “They tried to paint it as a real estate business, but in reality, it was an unregulated, unlicensed collective investment scheme.”
Further investigation into the case is still going on.
