ED attaches 28 assets worth Rs 80.65-cr of TRS lawmaker Nama Nageshwar Rao, his family

ED has attached 28 immovable properties and other assets worth Rs 80.65 crore belonging to TRS MP Nama Nageshwar Rao and his family members in an ongoing money laundering case against Ranchi Expressway Ltd, Madhucon Projects Ltd and its director and promoters, said ED.

New Delhi:The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has attached 28 immovable properties and other assets worth Rs 80.65 crore belonging to TRS MP Nama Nageshwar Rao and his family members in an ongoing money laundering case against Ranchi Expressway Ltd, Madhucon Projects Limited and its director and promoters, the agency said on Monday.

The ED has also attached the registered office of the Madhucon group of companies and residential property at Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad. The properties were attached under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2022. Nama Nageshwar Rao is a promoter and director of the Madhucon group of companies and a personal guarantor to the Bank loan defaulted by the company.

ED has identified and attached immovable assets of Rs 67.08 crore at Hyderabad, Khammam and at Prakasham district and movable assets of Rs 13.57 crore including shareholding of Nama Nageshwar Rao and his family members in Madhucon Projects Ltd, Madhucon Granites Limited and in other Madhucon group of companies, totalling to Rs 80.65 crore.

Earlier in July this year, ED had also provisionally attached 105 immovable properties and other assets worth Rs 73.74 crore belonging to Madhucon Group of companies and its directors and promoters, which included the properties of Madhucon Projects Limited and group companies, Nama Nageshwar Rao and other promoter and director of the company after conducting multiple searches and recording multiple statements of promoters, subcontractors, bankers, engineers and forensic auditors.

In a statement, the ED said, its investigation has revealed that the Madhucon Group promoters "siphoned off the loan funds of this project by taking the entire EPC Contract from its SPV, and then taking huge mobilisation and material advances, but instead of using those advances for the work, used it in their other projects".

Also, the ED said, direct cash of amount Rs 75.50 crore was generated by paying money and then receiving back the amount through six Shell Entities-- Usha Projects, Shree BR Visions, Sri Dharma Sastha Constructions, Sree Nagendra Constructions, Ragini Infrastructure and, Varalakshmi Constructions-- which were completely under the control of their Chairman Nama Nageshwara Rao and his sibling Nama Seethaiah.

"These sub-contractors did no work, had no sufficient expertise, were based in Andhra Pradesh or Telangana, whereas the project was in North India, and they took large advances from MPL from the loan funds and then paid back huge amounts to Madhucon Group on the pretext of using the equipment and labour of Madhucon Group," said the ED.

"So the funds came back to the Madhucon Group." The ED further said it has identified a direct diversion of Rs 361.29 crore from the bank loan obtained by Ranchi Expressways Limited. (ANI)