Rose Valley Ponzi scam: Centre hands over Rs 515 crore to help 7.5 lakh victims

New Delhi, April 12 (IANS) The government on Saturday handed over Rs 515.31 crore to Justice D.K. Seth (Retd), Chairman of the Asset Disposal Committee which was formed for the purpose of restitution of properties to legitimate investors in the Rose Valley Ponzi scam.

The amount of Rs. 515.31 crore was attached by Directorate of Enforcement (ED) in the years 2015-17 by investigating money trail and tracing 2,987 different bank accounts where the money collected from innocent victims had traversed.

According to a statement by the Ministry of Finance, the said bank accounts were then seized/attached following due process of law and converted into more than 700 fixed deposits (FDs) after confirmation of attachment by the Adjudicating Authority.

Union Minister of State for Finance, Pankaj Chaudhary, handed over a demand draft of Rs. 515.31 crore to the committee. It is estimated that this amount will be used to restitute money to approximately 7.5 lakh victims, out of the total claims of 31 lakh lodged so far with the committee.

Earlier, ED had handed over an amount of Rs 22 crore to the committee which was used to restitute money to 32,319 lawful investors, according to the ministry statement.

It may be mentioned that ED has also attached other movable and immovable assets of Rs 1,172 crore (present market value of the assets is estimated to be more than Rs. 2,000 crore), which is also in process of liquidation and refund to the victims.

ED is investigating five Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) cases against the Rose Valley Group in the states of West Bengal, Odisha, Assam and Tripura. ED has filed prosecution complaints in all these cases before the Special Courts under PMLA.

Investigation under PMLA revealed that Rose Valley Group companies, had collected funds of Rs 17,520 crore by luring people mostly from the lowest strata of society with promises of providing land parcels or time sharing in hotels and in the event of inability to deliver the land/time sharing, refund with high rate of interest was promised on maturity of investments.

Investigation has revealed that out of the above, an amount of Rs 6,666 crore, which constitutes the proceeds of crime, remained unpaid to the investors.

--IANS

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