Mumbai: Following a day-long searches by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday, the agency arrested Viva Group’s Managing Director (MD) Mehul Thakur and chartered accountant Madan Gopal Chaturvedi in connection with Punjab and Maharashtra Cooperative Bank (PMC) scam. The duo was produced before a special court on Saturday where they were sent to ED custody till January 27. Hiten Venegaokar, ED's counsel, told the court that the accused have not been co-operating with the investigations. “The accused number two (Chaturvedi) has revealed during investigations that the laptop was sold in scrap for Rs 300. Investigations also revealed that the accused deleted the mobile messages and chats,” Venegaokar said while demanding the need of custodial interrogation of the accused.
The ED has found alleged misappropriations in the balance sheet prepared by Chaturvedi. The anti-money laundering agency told the court that Thakur in his capacity of a director “acted as a felicitator” to park funds in the companies which were allegedly siphoned off. The agency has found transactions which are only on paper. The agency demanded custody to scan the books and where the money has been utilized.
During searches, the ED recovered Rs 73 lakh cash, incriminating digital and documentary evidence.
The ED, probing the PMC bank scam, initiated investigation in another case involving Rakesh Wadhawan and Sarang Wadhawan, the promoters of HDIL and others for siphoning off loan of Rs 200 cr sanctioned by Yes Bank to one Mack Star Marketing Pvt Ltd. This loan was siphoned off by Wadhawans by showing it for fictitious purposes, the ED investigations revealed. In the matter, CBI's anti-corruption bureau, Mumbai, had registered an FIR. “During investigation under PMLA, it is revealed that Wadhawans illegally transferred two commercial properties of Mack Star in Kaledonia building, Andheri East, Mumbai, valued at Rs 34.36 cr to M/s Viva Holding, a company of Viva Group. For the transfer of the said two properties, two separate sale agreements dated 26.06.2017 were prepared wherein sale value for both the subject commercial properties were shown as Rs 34.36 crore in total.
In the said sale agreements, the purchase amount was shown to be paid vide 37 cheques by Viva Holding to Mack Star Marketing Pvt Ltd. against the purchase of the said properties. Investigation has revealed that these cheques were never en-cashed in the account of Mack Star and Viva Holding never made payments for the purchase of the said property to Mack Star. Wadhawans had illegally transferred these properties to Viva Group in violation of the article of association of Mackstar.
