Karnataka Crime Investigation Department (CID) on Saturday, September 10 arrested Sushil Mantri, director of Mantri Developers, in a money laundering case. Mantri has been accused of cheating home buyers and has been remanded to judicial custody till September 12.
Sushil Mantri was arrested earlier on June 25 this year by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in a money laundering case. The agency had said that it filed a money laundering case against the group and its promoters in March after studying a Bengaluru police FIR registered against them in 2020. Many homebuyers had filed complaints with the police, as well as with the ED, alleging that Mantri Developers are involved in money laundering and have induced the prospective buyers with rosily painted schemes, showing misleading brochures, falsification of delivery timelines and collected more than Rs 1,000 crore as advance money from thousands of buyers.
However, they were not given possession of their flats even after 7-10 years, the ED had alleged. In some cases, the company has not refunded the amount to the buyers even after clear direction of the Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA), it said. Their investigation had found that the amount collected from the buyers by the company, which were meant for construction of the projects, had been diverted for personal use by the management of the company or for such other fraudulent purposes, and hence the projects were stalled.