MK AlagiriENFORCEMENT DIRECTORATE (ED) has attached 25 properties and bank deposits worth over Rs 40 crore belonging to Alagiri Dayanidhi, son of expelled DMK leader MK Alagiri, in connection with Rs 16,000 crore granite mining scam case in Tamil Nadu.
The central agency said on Wednesday that it has issued provisional attachment orders for these properties which are in the name of a company owned by Alagiri’s filmmaker son.
The assets include “movable and immovable properties consisting of lands, buildings in Madurai, Chennai and fixed deposits totaling to Rs 40.34 crores”.
The assets, ED said, belong to M/s Olympus Granites Pvt. Ltd and its directors which includes Dayanidhi. The attachments have been made under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
ED began its probe against Dayanidhi and his company based on a 2013 FIR registered by Tamil Nadu police. They alleged that Dayanidhi’s company had indulged in illegal mining in Madurai, Alagiri’s home turf. Alagiri was then a Union minister in the UPA government.
ED said the Tamil Nadu police’s chargesheet in the case disclosed commission of various offences including those under the Indian Penal Code and the Explosive Substances Act by the accused as a consequence of illegal granite mining.
“That the company, its shareholders/promoters/ directors viz S. Nagarajan and Alagiri Dhayanidhi along with other accused, criminally conspired and indulged in illegal mining activities in the adjacent TAMIN leased Land and thereby causing wrongful loss to the government and corresponding wrongful gain to themselves,” the ED said in a statement.
It claimed the probe revealed that Olympus Granites and its promoters had committed a “Scheduled Offence and derived proceeds of crime by indulging in illegal quarrying”.
