New Delhi, Mar 30 (IANS): The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has attached several properties of Arun Kumar Agrawal, the proprietor of Vaibhav Enterprises, and his other associated companies and persons worth Rs 8.18 crore in connection with a money laundering case.

An ED official said here that the agency has attached the properties of Agarwal to the tune of Rs 8.18 crore, which includes 14 bank accounts having balance worth Rs 1.1 crore, and seven immovable assets worth Rs 7.08 crore, including residential and commercial properties in Jaipur and Udaipur.

The ED had registered a case on the basis of multiple FIRs registered by the Rajasthan Police against Agrawal and his associated firms and persons. It was alleged that Agrawal with collusion of other associated persons and family members had conspired to float the above mentioned company wherein the general public were to invest money. These investors were promised that they would be given benefits of 9 per cent to 18 per cent as interest and sometimes even 24 per cent per annum payable on monthly basis.

The official said that during the money laundering probe, it was noticed that Agrawal was associated with Aetrio Real Corp Pvt Ltd, Vaibhav Hugemovers Pvt Ltd, Techradius High Tech Pvt Ltd, Routevisor Logistics Pvt Ltd, Truvic Capital Pvt Ltd and Vaibhav Nidhi India Pvt Ltd as the director with his main partner Amit Gautam and his brother Neeraj Agarwal.

The official said that numerous bank accounts were opened by the accused person in the name of the above firms or companies and associated persons and money was transferred to each other's bank accounts for layering of funds.

"The entries in the bank accounts were thoroughly scrutinised and examined which revealed the siphoning of funds, which were acquired in the form of investments from the gullible investors and were subsequently parked as investment in different properties," the official said.

The ED collected information from different banks, registration authorities, ROC, Income Tax department, police, RTO etc. and it was revealed that fundings to the said companies were made from the bank accounts of Vaibhav Enterprises and most of the said companies started to disguise the investors to show various business activities.

The official said that most of the companies were in loss and no actual work was being carried out there.

"It was also found that the investors' money was used for personal purposes for luxurious cars, jewellery, foreign tours, business of beauty parlour and to maintain a luxurious life style," he said.

The official said that Agrawal, Gautam and their family members had indulged in criminal conspiracy and cheated the general public by luring them to invest in the company/firm and thereafter, neither did they pay interest, nor the principal amount was returned to the gullible investors.

The official added that the master plan of the investment was floated by Agrawal and Gautam along with their associated persons.