HYDERABAD: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has stepped up investigation into the alleged money laundering by Habib Abdul Razzaq Hadi Ali Baghdadi, a city-based non-resident Indian (NRI) presently living in Saudi Arabia.
The probe agency is said to have chanced up on property registration documents of Baghdadi in which both the quantum of sale consideration and the payment methods were questionable. In some documents it was merely mentioned that the sale consideration was received by him while the crucial data on mode of payment was missing from the records.
Sources said that in one instance, Baghdadi, representing his company Hira Multi Construction Ventures Pvt Ltd, executed two sale deeds in favour of Mohd Hadi Ali and Huda Hadi Ali in January 2018. The sale consideration in both documents put together was shown as about Rs 60 lakh but the documents just contained a single line that the seller confirms the receipt of sale consideration.
"The property belonged to a private limited company and sale consideration must be reflected in the records," sources said, adding that Baghdadi and his son, who were summoned by the ED, had to explain these transactions.
The Interpol had earlier issued red corner notice on the two, based on a chargesheet filed by the Telangana Criminal Investigation Department. They got a further probe into the case stayed by the High Court and pressed for withdrawal of the red corner notice.
Meanwhile, one of the directors of Greenscape Mega Resorts Limited, which sold 118 acres to Baghdadi's HMCL, approached the National Company Law Tribunal complaining against the corporate fraud played by Baghdadi. The complainant alleged that Baghdadi issued cheques but did not honour them after the registration of the property was over.
Baghdadi himself admitted in one of the documents that there was abnormal delay in honouring cheques resulting in a dispute. Under the guise of selling land to third parties to make payments to Greenscape, Baghdadi executed sale deeds in favour of his son and daughter. "We were never paid the amount," alleged the complainant.
The NCLT has issued an interim order directing Baghdadi and his son not to alienate their share of 47 per cent in the Vooty Golf Resorts project, being developed on the city outskirts, to others till the case filed by Greescape directors was resolved.
