2 executives of Omkar Relators sent to ED custody in money laundering case

Prominent real-estate giant Omkar Group diverted Rs 410 crore on the name of developing slums in Mumbai, said the Enforcement Directorate (ED). The financial probe agency also claimed that Omkar Group forged the documents relating to names of slum-dwellers to get more loans from the bank.

A special court in Mumbai on Thursday sent the chairman and the managing director (MD) of Mumbai-based Omkar Realtors and Developers – Babulal Varma and Kamal Kishore Gupta – to the ED custody till January 30, a day after they were arrested in a money laundering case.

The ED money laundering case against them has been filed after studying an FIR of the Aurangabad district police in Maharashtra that was registered under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) such as cheating and criminal breach of trust.

The ED quoted the police FIR to say that “Omkar Realtors and Developers Pvt Ltd and its directors bought a firm, Surana Construction, which had SRA rights for re-development of Anand Nagar SRA Cooperative Housing Society in Mumbai”s Wadala area.”

“However, Omkar and its promoters did not pay back the amount due to the seller and also mortgaged future FSI (floor space index) of the said SRA project and took huge amounts of loans,” the ED said.

“Investigation under PMLA revealed that the loans to the tune of 410 crores were diverted and not used for intended purposes. No work on the SRA building was undertaken. The requisite rules and procedures under SRA were ignored by the accused and documents relating to names of slum dwellers were forged to claim more FSI for mortgaging the same with banks for taking the loans,” added the ED.

According to the ED, searches were conducted on January 25 on 11 premises including residential and office premises of key persons of Omkar Group. During the search operation, incriminating documents including digital evidence were seized, ED claimed.