Mumbai
The Enforcement Directorate conducted searches at the homes of Agnelo C Lobo, a former attorney of Serula village comunidade in Goa, and his brother Reginaldo Lobo, a former official of the local body, on Saturday in connection with an alleged land grabbing case. The agency said it has seized many incriminating documents.
Searches were also conducted on the premises of Joseph D’Sa, a former clerk of the comunidade, and one Rajesh Suhas Verenkar under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. The probe is tied to illegal allotment of plots as well as illegal acquisition of land belonging to the Serula village body.
Comunidade is a Portuguese era community institution, which has land holdings.
“PMLA Investigations were initiated by ED on the basis of FIRs registered by Crime Branch, Goa Police. As per the said FIRs, the members of managing committee of Comunidade of Serula were involved in illegal allotment of plots by fraudulently citing and using duplicate file numbers pertaining to files of offices of various administrators of comunidades and gazette notifications of government of Goa, thereby cheating the Comunidade of Serula and other authorities,” the agency said on Saturday.
The ED added, “The incriminating documents include old blank Indian stamp papers of the 1960s, old blank papers having Portuguese stamps used for making forged documents and deeds of sale used for illegal acquisition of land belonging to Comunidade of Serula. The documents seized also include old registers belonging to the office of administrator of Comunidades, Bardez, Govt of Goa which were being used for the purpose of illegal allotment of plots,” the agency said.
The agency is conducting further investigation in coordination with the Crime Branch, Goa Police.
