ED attaches properties over Rs 40 cr of Alagiri's son

The Enforcement Directorate on Wednesday attached properties and fixed deposits in banks worth Rs 40 crore owned by Dayanidhi Alagiri, son of former Union Fertilizers Minister and expelled DMK leader M K Alagiri.

The properties – land and buildings in Madurai (where the father-son duo is based) and Chennai – fixed deposits in bank totaling to Rs 40.34 crore, were attached under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA) in the illegal granite mining case.

The properties attached belonged to Olympus Granite Private Limited, in which Dayanidhi Alagiri is a partner.

Alagiri was Union Fertilizers Minister from 2009 to 2013 in the UPA-II Government and was the Organising Secretary – South Zone of the DMK, until he was suspended and later expelled from the party by his father, the late leader M Karunanidhi in 2014.

After the public spat, Alagiri was not taken back into the DMK, until his father's death in August 2018. His efforts to patch things up with his younger brother M K Stalin has not worked so far.

Alagiri is based in Madurai, having sent by Karunanidhi to the temple town in Southern Tamil Nadu in the 1980s to manage the city edition of ‘Murasoli’, DMK’s party organ edited and owned by the late patriarch.

ED said S Nagarajan and Alagiri Dayanidhi – partners of Olympus Granite Private Limited - along with other accused, criminally conspired and indulged in illegal mining activities in the adjacent land leased by TAMIN and thereby “causing wrongful loss to the government and corresponding wrongful gain to themselves.”

Investigation under PMLA revealed that the company and its promoters have committed a scheduled offence and derived proceeds of crime by indulging in the illegal quarrying.

The trade proceeds of the company were further relentlessly incubated, resulting in further accruals of proceeds of crime, all of which were camouflaged in the organisational system as business earnings, the ED said.

The agency further said these earning were gained out of illegal activity and 25 movable and immovable properties were identified as part of crime proceeds and the properties worth of Rs 40.34 crore were provisionally attached.