City Limousine Case: Special Court Orders Confiscation of Rs300 Crore Singapore Properties of Sayed Masood, Kin

Moneylife Digital Team 16 February 2022

A special court set up under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) has ordered the confiscation of properties worth about $40 million (Rs300 crore) of City Limousines (or Limousine) (I) Ltd’s chairman and promoter Sayed Masood, the maker of Chak de India and close buddy of Bollywood superstars, and those of his family members.

The property in Singapore is already attached by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in this multi-crore Ponzi scam.

PMLA Special Court Mumbai ordered confiscation of properties worth approx.40 million USD (Rs.300 Crore) attached by ED, held in Singapore in a Ponzi Scheme Fraud case owned by Shri Sayed Masood, Chairman & promotor of M/s City Limouzines (I) Ltd& his family members.
— ED (@dir_ed) February 16, 2022

City Limousine had floated a scheme under which investors paid for the cars to be bought in their names, and rented out by the company. But later, the cheques issued by the company began to bounce.

In 2012, as the first instance of an Indian agency getting access to Swiss bank accounts in its black money probe, the ED froze about Rs6 crore of stashed funds of Mr Masood, a Mumbai-based businessman in the money laundering scam. At that time, ED had said, “During the course of investigations, ED has issued 14 attachment orders attaching movable and immovable properties in India with a market value of over Rs130 crore in the names of City group of companies, Sayed Mohamed Masood, Mrs Chand Masood Sayed (his wife), Jabeen Masood Sayed (daughter) and Jibran Masood Sayed (son) and other directors.” (Read: Black money: Swiss bank accounts of ‘City Limousine’ owner frozen)

Later in 2016, the ED attached over Rs91 crore kept in a Singapore bank in connection with a money laundering probe of Citi Limousine, taking the total seizure of assets in this case to Rs385 crore. A year before ED had attached Rs166 crore in Singapore.

City Limousine had raised at least Rs1,300 crore; in fact, an officer from the SFIO had told Moneylife that they had discovered an overseas transfer of over Rs900 crore through a political leader. It had 10 cases registered against it in 2003, although complaints mounted dramatically within a year or two.

Thousands of investors have been duped, but media reports quietly downsized City Limouzine’s default anywhere between Rs500 crore-Rs1,000 crore while claiming that the operation shut down only in 2009.

How did the story change? What happened to the rest of the money? Maybe, the answer lies in a news report of 2010 that said that over 6,000 policemen and hundreds of government officials, including depositors were those from the income-tax department and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). (Read: Lodha Committee may be the Answer for mega scams)

Comments

User

tapanksur

2 years ago

we are the greatest country allowing "EASE OF DOING BUSINESS",making lots of money through wheeling dealing & then enjoy the sun in some carribean beach. Why are we like this? will things change when we have an elected government in the country? Only way out is "RIGHT TO RECALL" for a minimum 10 years!