PANAJI
Vikrant Shetty, Mohammed Suhail and Rajkumar Maithi among several others involved in the land fraud cases in Goa have come under the scrutiny of the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) that has provisionally attached 31 immovable properties valued at Rs 39.24 crore under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002.
The ED officials stated that the accused persons involved in the illegal grabbing of immovable properties across the State were being probed for money laundering after the expose.
The investigation was initiated on the basis of various FIRs registered by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of Goa Police and different police stations.
“ED investigation revealed that various immovable properties were illegally acquired by the accused persons in their names or in the names of their associates/relatives. The accused persons placed forged documents in the land records to support their claim that the immovable properties belonged to their ancestors,” the ED said, explaining its action against the accused.
“Based on these forged documents they were able to get their names updated/inserted in the land records by making succession deeds/inventories. Few of these illegally acquired properties were sold by the accused persons to buyers from Goa and other States.”
Quite a few accused including the trio named by the ED and a handful of government servants have multiple cases of land fraud registered against them. They were also arrested by Goa Police but subsequently released on conditional bail.
The SIT, formed over a year ago, has registered 111 FIRs. The chargesheet in these cases is awaited.
