Rose Valley scam much bigger than Saradha: Enforcement Directorate

KOLKATA: The mobilisation of money from the market is much more in Rose Valley firm than in the Saradha ponzi firms, Enforcement Directorate (ED), which is probing the money laundering aspects of both the firms, said here.

"The Rose Valley scam is of much bigger magnitude than the Saradha. It is probably six times bigger as Rose Valley had collected deposits of around Rs 15,000 crore from the public", a source in the directorate told PTI.

To track the money trail of Rose Valley, ED had already frozen around 2500-odd accounts of the firm.

While money can be deposited in those accounts, no amount can be withdrawn from them, the source said.

The source said that public attention was much more in Saradha as it turned out to be a high profile one. The CBI had also been directed to probe the Saradha scam which the agency was doing now along with the ED.

Tracking the accounts of these two firms was a humongous task as each account was having several branch accounts.

"For instance, we have unearthed so far ten lakh accounts for the Saradha group. There could be more which is yet to be ascertained", the source said.

Relating to Saradha probe, which ED started from April 2013, the source said that identification of substantial part of `crime proceeds' was over.

"We will be able to file the charge sheet once the predicate offence was established by CBI", the source said.