Economic Offenses Wing puts freeze on 276 of D S Kulkarni's bank accounts

PUNE: The Economic Offenses Wing has put a freeze on 276 bank accounts of developer D S Kulkarni, his wife Hemanti and some of their companies, having a cumulative balance of Rs43 crore.
Assistant commissioner of police, Economic Offenses Wing (EOW), Nilesh More said a majority of Kulkarni’s properties were mortgaged with banks. “We have tracked down 276 accounts so far. They have a cumulative amount of Rs43.9 crore,” he said.

Kulkarni and his wife were arrested in a cheating case from a hotel in Delhi on February 17. They are now lodged in the Yerawada Central Prison. So far, about 5,000 persons have approached EOW with complaint applications and the total amount involved has gone up to about Rs350 crore.

The EOW teams seized a large number of files conducting searches at Kulkarni’s residences and offices. “DSK did not cooperate with the investigators during his police custody and now the investigations are completely based on documentary evidence collected from these files,” More said.

DSK and his wife floated fixed deposit (FD) scheme and many people invested their money in it. In recent times, DSK failed to pay the dividends or return the money to the investors, prompting people to approach the police. A case against DSK (68), Hemanti (59) and his son was filed. The courts gave interim protection to DSK and his wife after the developer promised to return money to people. But he did not manage to raise the money. On February 17, DSK and his wife were arrested.