ED attaches properties worth Rs 6.45 cr of company owned by Uddhav Thackeray's brother-in-law in money laundering case

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) provisionally attached immovable properties worth Rs 6.45 crore in the case of M/s Pushpak Bullion, one of the Group companies of Pushpak Group, on Tuesday. The attachment included 11 residential flats in the Neelambari project in Thane belonging to the Shree Saibaba Grihanirmiti Pvt. Ltd (owned and controlled by Shridhar Madhav Patankar, brother-in-law of Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray).

Earlier, the ED had recorded a money-laundering case against Pushpak Bullion and other companies of the group on March 6, 2017, under the provisions of PMLA, for allegedly laundering money in the post-demonetisation period and had already provisionally attached immovable and movable properties of Pushpak Bullion to the tune of Rs 21.46 crore belonging to Mahesh Patel, Chandrakant Patel, their family members and the companies controlled by them.

“Subsequent investigation revealed that Mahesh Patel had siphoned off and layered funds of Pushpak group concern M/s Pushpak Realty in connivance with Nandkishore Chaturvedi (Accommodation Entry provider). M/s Pushpak Realty Developer in the garb of sale, transferred funds to the tune of Rs 20.02 crore to the entities controlled by Nandkishore Chaturvedi after layering it through various connected/ unconnected entities,” the agency officials claimed in a statement.

“Nandkishore Chaturvedi, who operates a number of shell companies further transferred the money through his shell company M/s Humsafar Dealer Private Limited in the garb of extending unsecured loans in excess of Rs 30 crore to M/s Shree Saibaba Grihanirmiti Pvt. Ltd. Thus, the money siphoned off by Mahesh Patel in connivance with Nandkishore Chaturvedi was parked in the real estate projects by Shree Saibaba Grihanirmiti Pvt. Ltd,” agency officials claimed.