MUMBAI: The Mumbai unit of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) has provisionally attached 211 immovable assets worth ₹ 646.58 crore across multiple states as part of its money-laundering investigation into private firm Pancard Clubs Limited (PCL) and others in an alleged ₹ 4,387-crore Ponzi scheme-based investment fraud.
The attached assets comprise offices, luxury hotels, resorts, agricultural land and residential properties across Maharashtra, Kerala, Uttarakhand, Goa, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana and Dadra & Nagar Haveli. The properties are in the names of PCL and Panoramic Universal Limited, their subsidiary concerns and their beneficial owners and family members.
The investigation also revealed that the funds were systematically layered through multiple dummy companies and later injected into associate entities like Panoramic Universal Limited and its domestic and overseas subsidiaries. The EOW submitted its charge sheet to a city-based special MPID (Maharashtra Protection of Interest of Depositors Act) court on December 31, 2021. The investigation revealed that the accused had allegedly established a network of 46 corporate entities under the Panoramic Group of Companies. They subsequently floated illegal Ponzi schemes under the pretext of selling time-share holiday memberships and discounted hotel room stays, luring over 5.1 million investors across India with promises of unrealistic financial returns.
The ED investigation is based on a case registered by the Dadar police against PCL and others, which was subsequently taken over by the Mumbai police’s Economic Offences Wing.
These funds, parts of the POC in the case, were subsequently integrated to acquire high-value real estate properties, resorts, and commercial units across India and abroad in the names of group companies, their directors and their family members, while attempting to project them as “untainted properties”, ED officials said.
