PUNE: The enforcement directorate (ED) on Thursday attached immovable properties worth Rs 904 crore of city-based developer D S Kulkarni, popularly known as DSK, in the money laundering case filed against him.The action was initiated under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002. The ED seized land, buildings, flats, bank deposits, policies and other properties of DSK.More than 35,000 investors/depositors have allegedly been cheated by the arrested builder. According to the ED, the DSK group cheated people of Rs 1,129 crore in the deposit schemes started by Kulkarni, his wife Hemanti and son Shirish. They were acting on various positions in the companies under the DSK Group of Companies which was involved in the real estate, automobile, sports, information technology and education sectors. The flagship company was D S Kulkarni Developers Limited (DSKDL).The ED stated, “Investigations disclosed that the trio and others conspired among themselves and formed eight partnership firms, including D S Kulkarni and Company, D S Kulkarni and Associates, D S Kulkarni and Brothers, D S Kulkarni and Sons, DSK and Sons, DSK Constructions and DSK Enterprises, under the DSKDL with the sole motive of collecting funds from the gullible people based in Mumbai, Pune, Kolhapur and other cities of Maharashtra .”The ED said all partnership firms were projected as part and parcel of DSKDL. These eight partnership firms did not have any profit generating business. Nevertheless, the trio, in connivance with others, dishonestly induced gullible people and collected funds between 2006 and 2017 in different deposit schemes through these eight firms.“The money trail established that the trio with others systematically layered and integrated the funds collected by these eight partnership firms through various high value sham transactions under the cover of capital borrowing, advances against property and director’s loan between more than 40 companies/entities of the DSK group to project it as untainted money and finally laundered the money to DSKDL,” the ED stated.The ED said the money was utilized to purchase land in India and in the US.Kulkarni and Hemanti were arrested in the cheating case registered with the Shivajinagar police in February 2018. The case was registered against the builder in October 2017 for not returning the fixed deposit of an elderly man.

Stay updated with all the Pune Latest News headlines here. For more exclusive & live news updates from all around India, stay connected with NYOOOZ.