Investment fraud: ED seizes cash of Rs 1.21 cr, jewellery worth Rs 5.51 cr
   Date :07-Mar-2023

Investment fraud 
 
 
Staff Reporter
The Enforcement Directorate has seized Rs 1.21 crore cash and gold and diamond jewellery worth more than Rs 5.51 crore during the raids conducted at premises of Pankaj Mehadia, Lokesh Jain and Karthik Jain on March 3.
According to ED officials, the searches were conducted for more than 12 hours at 15 places in Nagpur and Mumbai at the residences and offices of Pankaj Mehadia, Lokesh Jain, Karthik Jain, who are the main accused of this scam and also on the office and residential premises of the main beneficiaries. Most of the jewellery and cash was seized from the premises of Pankaj Mehadia, the official said, adding that digital devices and various incriminating documents were also seized during the searches.
The ED had initiated investigation under Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) based on the FIR registered at Sitabuldi Police Station against Pankaj Nandlal Mehadiya, Lokesh Santosh Jain, Kartik Santosh Jain, Balmukund Lalchand Keyal, Premlata Nandlal Mehadiya in a fraud causing loss to investors in crores of rupees. The police FIR was based on the Rs 8.16 crore investment fraud where investors had invested the money in three companies owned by Mehadia and his accomplices in lieu of huge interests. Mehadia repaid the investors for two to three years, but since 2017, he stopped paying many investors and also declared that his company had gone bankrupt at the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), the ED officials said. The total amount of investments made in Mehadia's companies, as per sources, is close to Rs 1,000 crores.
Pankaj Mehadia had lured various businessmen from across Maharashtra to invest in his companies, including Mehadia Sales Trade Corporation, Mehadia Sales Trade Corporation Pvt Ltd, Ms Nandlal D Mehadia, Lokesh Metalicks, Sadguru Enterprises and Nand Sons Logistics Ltd. After declaring himself out-of-cash, Mehadia and his accomplices informed NCLT that they were unable to return the investors’ money.
The investigation also revealed that Pankaj Nandlal Mehadia along with others lured various investors by promising to give 12 per cent assured profit after deducting Tax Deducted at Source on the investments made from the year 2004 to 2017. Throughout the period of 2005 to 2016, with the malafide intentions of cheating and siphoning off the investors' money, the accused persons ran the Ponzi scheme giving assured returns to win over the investors and thus luring the investors to invest in larger amounts in the associated firms/companies and ultimately did not return the money.
In order to divert the money and to give the transactions a tinge of legitimacy, transactions worth more than Rs 150 Crore have been affected in the Bank accounts and it is suspected that most of these transactions are not backed by genuine business deals and are in the nature of accommodation entries, the ED officials said.