Noida: The officials of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) probing an old land scam case arrived at a crucial juncture recently when they recovered diamonds and gold jewellery worth crores of rupees from 18 locations across five cities. These were the premises linked to retired Noida Authority CEO Mohinder Singh and others who were involved in a Noida land scam case.
The ED, in an official statement, said that its Lucknow Zonal office conducted search operations at 18 locations in Delhi, Noida, Meerut, Chandigarh, and Goa from Sept 17-18 under the provisions of Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002.
The federal agency found total cash and jewellery worth Rs 42.56 crore. It included unexplained cash of Rs 85 lakh, gold and diamond jewellery worth Rs 29.35 crore (approx.), one solitaire diamond worth Rs 5.26 crore, Diamond jewellery worth Rs 7.1 crore and a large number of property documents worth crore of rupees have been recovered and seized, the agency added.
A solitaire worth Rs 5 cr was recovered from one of the premises of Singh. ED also found various incriminating documents, evidence (physical/digital) containing details related to siphoning of the investors’ money and money laundering were also recovered and seized from the office and residential premises.
Who Is Mohinder Singh And Why Is ED Probing Him?
Mohinder Singh is an ex-IAS officer of Uttar Pradesh cadre, batch 1978. He served as the CEO of Noida-Greater Noida Authority for a period of five years during the Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) government in the state. It is said that during that time, Singh used to be a powerful person managing and overseeing land and other deals.
The recent searches by the ED were conducted in connection with the fraud committed by M/s Hacienda Projects Private Limited and its promoters/Directors and related entities/persons against homebuyers of 'Lotus 300' Projects to the tune of Rs 426 crore.
The agency searched the office and residential premises of the company, Promoters/Directors of companies and related entities namely HPPL, M/S Cloud 9 Projects Pvt. Ltd., Surpreet Singh Suri, Vidur Bhardwaj, Nirmal Singh, Aditya Gupta, Ashish Gupta, Mohinder Singh Retd IAS (then CEO of Noida Authority) and others, who were all found to be involved in offence of money laundering.
The probe was initiated after Allahabad High Court's directions in 2019. Also, multiple FIRs registered by the Economic Offence Wing (EOW), New Delhi against M/s Hacienda Projects Pvt Ltd, its Director/ officials and others for diversion/ siphoning off the hard-earned monies of the investors/ home buyers and ultimately not providing them the promised flats, the ED said,
The federal agency had earlier questioned Mohinder Singh in the money laundering case revolving around Amarpali housing project in January 2021. ED had issued a summons to him and six other then-senior officials of the Noida Authority.
On the direction of the Supreme Court, ED initiated alleged money laundering probe in the Amrapali Project in Noida.