ED arrests M3M director Roop Kumar Bansal over money laundering allegations
Jun 09, 2023
New Delhi [India], June 9 : The Enforcement of Directorate (ED) on Thursday arrested, Roop Kumar Bansal, director of real estate company M3M. Bansal is arrested under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), ED officials said.
This comes after the enforcement agency on June 1, 2023, carried out search operations at 07 locations of Delhi and neighbouring Gurugram belonging to IREO Group and M3M Group on charges of diverting, siphoning off, and misappropriating of funds.
The investigations were initiated based on multiple FIRs registered against IREO Group. The investigations done by ED showed that huge amounts of money running to hundreds of crores were siphoned off through the M3M group also.
The investigations done by ED showed that in one of the transactions, the M3M group received about Rs 400 crore from IREO Group through several "shell companies" in multiple layers.
"After receiving the amount of Rs. 400 Crore from IREO Group, the 5 shell companies transferred the said amounts immediately to M3M Group through multiple shell companies and layers. All the shell companies were owned and operated by M3M Group under the directions of its promoters Basant Bansal and Roop Kumar Bansal and his family members. In this way, IREO and M3M siphoned off about Rs. 400 Crore money belonging to investors/ customers and the proceeds of crime remained with M3M Group which was used by M3M for other investments/ paying off liabilities," the ED earlier said in a release on June 5.
"On the other hand, IREO Group did not make any efforts to develop the land and started to write off the investments every year."
ED also said the owners or controllers or promoters of the M3M Group -- Basant Bansal, Roop Kumar Bansal, Pankaj Bansal and other key persons -- deliberately avoided investigations.
During the search operation, 17 high-end luxury vehicles worth approximately Rs 60 crore, jewellery and bullion worth Rs 5.75 crore, cash Rs 15 lakh and various incriminating documents, digital evidence and books of accounts were seized, the June 5 release stated.
