JOIN USA special anti-money laundering court here has attached assets worth over Rs 37.86 crore belonging to former Karnataka minister and mining baron Gali Janardhana Reddy and his wife in connection with an alleged multi-crore iron ore mining scam.
The assets, including a Rs 4-crore flat in Bangalore, a Rs 14-lakh house in Bellary, and fixed deposits and cash in bank accounts, were attached by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) earlier this year under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
The central agency had, in 2012, registered a case against the minister and others and undertaken criminal action against him and his wife G Lakshmi Aruna in connection with its money laundering probe into the business operations of Associated Mining Company (Guru Iron Ore mines) based in Havambhavi in Bellary district of Karnataka. The total value of the seized assets is Rs 37,88,66,108.70.
“After careful consideration of the material placed before me, including the FIR, charge sheet filed by CBI and the submissions by the learned counsels, I am convinced prima facie that the defendants (Reddy and wife) had committed scheduled offences, generated proceeds of crime and ploughed them into properties provisionally attached,” the court of the Adjudicating Authority for PMLA and Chairman, K Raamamoorthy, said in its latest order.
The court is the nodal judicial body set up to decide cases of enforcement and money laundering.
The ED complaint said Reddy and his wife allegedly “made wrongful gains to the tune of Rs 480 crore” in the case, and the attached assets constitute the “proceeds of crime”.