The Enforcement Directorate has provisionally attached 48 movable and immovable properties worth ₹175 crore of Kolkata-based Shree Ganesh Jewellery House India Limited in connection with the allegation of cheating a consortium of 25 banks to the tune of ₹2,672 crore.
The assets include factories, offices and showrooms in Kolkata, Howrah, Siliguri, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Pune and Gujarat, apart from bank accounts.
The ED’s probe is based on the FIR registered by the CBI against the company. It is alleged that the company availed itself of credit facilities in the form of working capital loans and discounting of export bills from 20 nationalised and five private banks, and siphoned off the fund so raised, through entities in India and overseas.
The company had taken the funds between 2012 and 2014. “Accused Nilesh Parekh, Kamlesh Parekh and Umesh Parekh, the chief promoters, defrauded the consortium of banks by fraudulently floating numerous companies in India and abroad and also wholly-owned subsidiaries in Dubai, Singapore and Hong Kong,” alleged the ED.
The accused purportedly exported gold jewellery to the overseas entities from their manufacturing unit at Manikanchan in Kolkata but did not repatriate the sale proceeds to the banks. The funds were laundered and invested in acquiring assets, said the agency.