Kasaragod: The Directorate of Enforcement (ED), Kozhikode, has provisionally attached assets worth Rs 19.6 crore in the Fashion Gold deposit scam. The attachments come to 75% of the told money the promoters owe to 168 complainants.

The assets attached by ED on August 2 include immovable properties of Fashion Gold group, its Chairman and former Muslim League MLA M C Kamaruddin, Managing Director T K Pookoya Thangal, a religious leader, and their family members and associates, said ED in a press statement.

The assets have been attached under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002 on August 2. ED initiated the investigation on the basis of the FIRs registered against them by Kerala Police.

Since September 2020, the Crime Branch has registered 168 cases of cheating after four companies -- Fashion Gold International Pvt Limited, Fashion Ornaments Pvt Limited, Qamar Fashion Gold Pvt Limited, and Nujum Gold Private Limited -- took illegal deposits from the public, promising exorbitant monthly returns of 12% to 14% and started defaulting post demonetisation.

The Crime Branch estimated that the four companies and their promoters owe Rs 26.15 crore to the 168 complainants. The other accused include Pookoya Thangal's son Hisham Ancharappattil, his nephew Sainul Abid, general managers, store managers, and all the directors of the four companies.

They were charged with cheating, criminal breach of trust, criminal breach of trust by a public servant (Sections 420, 406, and 409 of the Indian Penal Code), and raising money from the public under an unregulated deposit scheme (Section 3 of the Banning of Unregulated Deposit Schemes [BUDS] Act and Section 5 of the Kerala Protection of Interests of Depositors in Financial Establishment Act 2013).

In August 2023, the state government attached six properties of the promoters under the BUDS Act; the properties if sold may raise around 50% of their total liabilities to the depositors, said a police. ED said in the statement that Fashion Gold companies were not authorised to accept deposits from the public.

"Therefore they devised a plan to receive deposits from the public in the guise of investment in share capital, and as advances from directors and shareholders of the company. For this purpose, the investors, mostly NRIs, were made directors and shareholders in the company," ED said in the statement.

The accused then siphoned the money and purchased immovable properties in their individual names and subsequently disposed of or transferred those properties, it said.
With ED and state government's attachments, the depositors are likely to get back their deposits, provided the central agency and state police successfully prosecute the accused.