Panaji: The Directorate of Enforcement (ED), Panaji zonal office, has provisionally attached immovable property worth over Rs 4.20 crore in a money laundering probe linked to an alleged multi-crore land fraud. The property, measuring 5,000 square metres, is located in Vaddem ward of Socorro, Bardez.
The ED initiated an investigation under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) based on an FIR registered by the Porvorim Police on the complaint of a legal heir of the property owner. The case was later transferred to the special investigation team of the crime branch.
The ED probe revealed that the property, which stood in the name of the complainant’s late father, was allegedly grabbed by instituting inventory proceedings before the competent civil court. It was falsely claimed that the father of two sisters residing in Pune was the same person as the deceased owner.
“On the strength of the order so obtained, the property was mutated in the land records in the names of the two sisters. A Power of Attorney dated February 17, 2018, in respect of the property had earlier been obtained from the two sisters and their husbands at Pune by a resident of Socorro,” the ED said.
The investigation further revealed that Rs 9 lakh was remitted through banking channels to one of the sisters on January 22, 2018, by a person who later purchased plots from the property. The payment was made before the Power of Attorney was executed and more than a year before the inventory proceedings, through which the title was created.
The sale of the property had thus been arranged and ‘part-paid’ before any semblance of title or of authority to sell existed.
According to the ED, the property was subsequently subdivided, without ‘planning permission’, into 11 plots, which were sold between 2018 and 2020 to nine purchasers through a chain of brokers. The sale deeds were executed by John Paul Valles as the Power of Attorney holder.
“Five of those deeds were executed in 2018 and recited a devolution upon the vendors by way of an inventory which had not then taken place,” the ED said.
The sale deeds declared an aggregate consideration of Rs 63.65 lakh, while around Rs 1,49,53,000 was actually paid, largely in cash and through cheques with the payee’s name left blank. The fair market value of the plots was Rs 3,43,64,472.
In July, the ED conducted searches under Section 17 of the PMLA at eight premises in Goa and Pune, during which digital devices and documents were seized.
