Shashwati Chowdhury
Published on: June 27, 2022 at 17:38 IST
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested Sushil Pandurang Mantri in connection with a money laundering case. Mantri Developers Private Limited is a real estate company with its headquarters in Bengaluru.
He has been remanded in custody of the ED for ten days by a Court.
Sushil, 59, appeared up for questioning on Friday after receiving a notice from the ED, but a source said he refused to cooperate with the investigation. He is also allegedly failing to give investigators the papers needed for the investigation. He was accordingly arrested and placed into custody.
The central agency specified the reasons for the arrest in a statement.
According to the ED, an investigation was started after an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) was filed in March based on a FIR that homeowners had filed against the company’s directors and other executives at Bengaluru’s Subramanyapura police station in 2020.
The homebuyers alleged that the accused entities and people had induced them with “rosily painted schemes, misleading brochures, falsified delivery timelines, and window-dressing” and were involved in money laundering. The ED said that the company had more than Rs 1,000 crore in advance from thousands of buyers seven to 10 years prior but had failed to give possession of the flats.
The ED found that the company took money in advance for the flats/homes and offered a variety of Ponzi-like schemes by naming them buyback plans. Although the funds obtained from customers were supposed to be used for construction, the management diverted them for personal use or other fraudulent purposes, the ED alleged, which caused the projects to halt.
According to the ED, the company in certain instances failed to reimburse the buyers despite being given explicit instructions by the Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA).
The group currently has outstanding loans from financial institutions almost the total of Rs 5,000 crore in. About Rs 1,000 crore of these are overdue, and some of the loans have been classified as non-performing assets (NPAs).
At the Cubbon Park police station in 2019, eight cases were filed by various homebuyers accusing Sushil, his son, and others of defrauding them after taking money by promising flats or homes.