The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Saturday, May 27, said it has attached Rs 34.7 lakh available in the bank account of the Udhayanidhi Stalin Foundation in Tamil Nadu as part of a money laundering case. It said the foundation has received the proceeds of crime amounting to Rs 1 crore. The ED initiated the investigation, conducted under various sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), on the basis of a First Information Report (FIR) filed by the Central Crime Branch-I in Chennai.
The FIR stated that the complainant Gaurav Chachra, director of Pettigo Comercio Internacional, a subsidiary of Lyca Group had defrauded of Rs 114.37 crore by the Kallal Group and its founders and directors, namely Saravanan Palaniappan, Vijaykumaran, Aravinth Raj, Vijay Ananth, Lakshmi Muthuraman, and Preetha Vijayananth. Pettigo Comercio is a subsidiary of the UK-based Lyca Group, which has a significant presence in India in the form of Lyca Productions, Lyca Hotels etc. Lyca Productions has been involved with many big projects including 2.0 and the Ponniyin Selvan films, and is currently working on upcoming films starring Rajinikanth, Ajith and Kamal Haasan.
The ED’s probe into the case revealed that the fraud was actually of an amount of Rs 300 crore, as the Lyca Group had also made other investments/loans to the Kallal group and its entities “without any due diligence or rationale”. The central agency then conducted search operations at the premises of both the accused and the complainants on April 27 and May 16. “It led to the discovery of various incriminating evidences in the form of digital evidence, documents, properties, suspicious cash and hawala transactions which is still under the ED scanner and investigations,” it said.
Further, in order to secure part of the proceeds of crime, the ED has provisionally attached various immovable properties across Tamil Nadu valued at Rs 36.3 crore, besides the Rs 34.7 lakh available in the bank account of Udhayanidhi Stalin Foundation. The central agency said the trustees of the Udhayanidhi Stalin Foundation couldn’t explain the rationale behind receiving an amount of Rs 1 crore from the parties involved in the case. The Foundation was launched in August 2021 by Udhayanidhi Stalin, an actor-politician who currently serves as the Minister for Youth Welfare and Sports in Tamil Nadu.
ED has provisionally attached various immovable properties across Tamil Nadu, on 25/5/2023 valued at Rs. 36.3 Crore and further attached Rs. 34.7 lakh available in the bank account of M/s Udayanidhi Stalin Foundation in the case of Kallal Group and others.
— ED (@dir_ed) May 27, 2023