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by IANS |
New Delhi, April 1 (IANS) The Enforcement Directorate (ED), on Thursday said it has attached properties worth Rs 216.40 crore of a Chennai-based firm -- Southern Agrifurane Industries Pvt Ltd (SAIPL) and its promoter, director MGM Maran (former chairman of Tamilnad Mercantile Bank Limited), and his associate MGM Anand, for violating the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA).
The ED said that seized assets are in the form of land and buildings owned by SAIPL in Tamil Nadu and Telangana, shares owned by Maran in Tamilnad Mercantile Bank Limited, shares of Indian companies SAIPL, MGM Entertainment Pvt Ltd and Anand Transport Pvt Ltd owned by Anand.
SAIPL is found to have siphoned off Indian funds of Rs 216.40 crore aboard under the garb of Overseas Direct Investments (ODI) by way of False Declarations to its AD Bank as well as by way of structuring transactions in a manner so as to send outward remittances without any bonafides and with sole objective to remove funds from India in the name of ODI without there being any genuine business reasons for SAIPL.
Officials said that such funds had been diverted outside Indian under the garb of ODI with an intention to escape the clutches of Indian laws. By this way, the company siphoned off around 85 per cent of its entire net worth abroad.
"Also, Maran had surrendered the Indian Passport in 2016 and taken 'Cyprus Passport' to become a citizen of Cyprus. In another FEMA investigation, Maran remained totally non-compliant to the proceedings and did not attend ED office even once, in-spite of multiple summons and did not submit any of his foreign assets details, resulting into another seizure order of his Indian Assets worth Rs 293 crore in the month of December 2021," said the ED official.
Further investigation into the matter is underway.
