ED attaches Rs 4.2 crore worth assets in PMLA case against ex-Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh

MUMBAI: In a major action against the former home minister of Maharashtra Anil Deshmukh, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) had attached his assets worth Rs 4.2 crore in the money laundering case.
The attached assets are held in the name of Deshmukh’s wife Aarti and his son's company, Premier Port Links Pvt Ltd.
The attached assets include a flat that was purchased in Rs 1.5 crore at Worli in Mumbai and 25 land parcels at a neighbouring district in Rs 2.67 crore ( purchased value) at Dhutum Villages in Uran.
Earlier, TOI reported that the Deshmukh family purchase lands in Uran in 2006 on the name of Premier Port Links Pvt Ltd by paying villagers mostly in cash. The ED investigating the company in the case.
The ED said that the Worli flat is registered in the name of his wife Aarti Deshmukh and they found that the entire payment for purchasing the flat was made through cash in 2004. The sale deed of the flat was registered in 2020 when Anil Deshmukh was home minister, said the ED in a press release.
Earlier, ED summoned Aarti for questioning in the case but she failed to appear after citing her health condition and old age.
The ED is investigating a money laundering case against Deshmukh based on the allegation of the former Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh in his letter to the chief minister.
Singh had alleged that Deshmukh, then home minister of Maharashtra, had demanded Rs 100 crore every month from dismissed assistant police inspector Sachin Vaze (then heading the CIU of Mumbai police) and two other officers after asking them to collect it illegally from orchestra bars in the city and other sources.
Vaze has been arrested by NIA for planting an explosive-laden vehicle outside industrialist Mukesh Ambani’s house and killing the vehicle owner Mansukh Hiren. Singh was shifted from the post of Mumbai police commissioner after the Vaze controversy. Singh wrote the letter to the chief minister after which Deshmukh resigned.