Mumbai: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Sunday arrested actor and businessman Sachiin Joshi in connection with a money laundering case.
The arrest comes a day after the agency questioned him. The arrest was done in connection with the Omkar group probed under the provisions of Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA). Joshi from JMJ group had come to the limelight in 2017 when he had purchased businessman Vijay Mallya’s Kingfisher Villa in Goa. Sources said that Joshi has been under scanner for allegedly laundering several crores of rupees. The agency has now launched a probe to trace the money trail. The Income Tax department has also conducted searches in this regard.
To recall, the ED arrested Babulal Varma and Kamal Kishore Gupta, promoters of M/s Omkar Group, under the provisions of the PMLA. The anti-money laundering agency has initiated investigation on the basis of FIR registered by Aurangabad police, Maharashtra under Section 34, 406 and 420 of Indian Penal Code against promoters of Omkar Group.
According to the FIR, Omkar Realtors and Developers Pvt Ltd and its directors bought a firm M/s Surana Construction which had SRA rights for redevelopment of Anand Nagar SRA Cooperative Housing Society, Wadala, Mumbai.
However, M/s Omkar and its promoters did not pay back the amount due to the seller and also mortgaged future FSI of the said SRA project and took huge amounts of loans. “Investigation under PMLA revealed that the loans to the tune of ₹410 crores were diverted and not used for intended purposes,” the agency has earlier stated. The Omkar group has earlier denied allegations of any wrongdoing.