India’s Enforcement Directorate (ED) has attached 52 immovable properties worth ₹323.7 million ($4.28m) in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002 in the Agri Gold Ponzi Scheme Fraud Case.
The Agri Gold Group (AGG) ran an unregulated, unlicensed, fraudulent Collective Investment Scheme, fraudulently portraying it as real estate business. AGG floated over 130 companies to carry out the scheme. The group collected deposits from general public, promising them developed plots/farm lands or money withdrawal at a high rate of return on maturity/pre-term. AGG hired thousands of commission agents to lure people into the scheme under the pretext of real estate dealings, collecting a whopping ₹63.80 billion ($840m) from 3,202,628 investor accounts. The victims received neither plots nor their deposits.
Earlier in December 2020, the ED had attached assets worth ₹41.09 billion ($540m) with the scheme. Based on newly identified properties in relation to the case, the total attachment value is now ₹41.42 billion ($550m).
Source: Enforcement Directorate, India