Madhu Koda case: Rs 5 crore assets of Bastawade attached

NEW DELHI: Enforcement Directorate has attached assets worth Rs 5 crore belonging to Anil Bastawade in connection with the alleged multi-crore money laundering case involving former Jharkhand Chief Minister Madhu Koda.

Bastawade is claimed by the investigators to be one of the crucial persons in the case and is being continuously grilled by ED sleuths since he was brought to Ranchi in January.

He was recently brought to India from Indonesia after the Interpol informed ED about the businessman's presence there.

The agency, according to sources, has attached Bastawade's properties in India worth Rs 5 crore and is in the process of attaching other assets abroad worth Rs 138 crore.

An attachment action is done by the agency under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and is aimed to deprive the accused of benefits of his ill-gotten property and assets.

The ED has been probing Koda and others for allegedly making illegal investments and transactions by corrupt means and laundering when he was the Chief Minister.

Bastawade, investigators claim, helped Koda and his other associates to invest and purchase a number of properties in the middle-east, Indonesia and Thailand.

He is the seventh accused arrested after Koda, Binod Sinha, Vikas Sinha, Manoj Punamiya, Arvind Vyas and Vijay Joshi in connection with the money laundering and illegal investment case slapped against them.

Koda, now on bail, was arrested on November 30, 2009 after Income Tax department and ED claimed to have unearthed Rs 2,500 crore money laundering and illegal investments following country-wide raids on 70 premises on October 31 the same year.

An ED official said the scam, which allegedly took place during the Koda regime between 2006 and 2008, could be to the tune of Rs 3,400 as brought out in course of investigations.

ED had earlier attached properties - both immovable and movable - worth Rs 200 crore in this case and had also filed a charge sheet in a special court in Ranchi last year.