Enforcement Directorate attaches Rs 200 crore granite companies' assets in Madurai

Chennai: The Enforcement Directorate has attached 517 properties of two granite companies in Madurai worth Rs 98 crore and a market value of about Rs 200 crore. The move by ED is connection with its money laundering probe in the alleged illegal granite quarrying scam of Madurai. “As these immovable properties are involved in money laundering, ED attached them provisionally under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA),” the central probe agency said in a statement.

The case pertains to 2013 when the Madurai district Police registered five FIRs against Ms Madurai Granite Exports, Ms M R Granites, Ms R R Granites and their proprietors and partners. According to ED, Charge sheets were filed by the state police alleging illegal quarrying of multi-coloured granites at Melur, Keelavalavu, Rasipuram and other places in and around Madurai district by the accused, with a common object to trespass into the nearby areas of government's Poramboke land, by allegedly removing boundary stones erected by the revenue department.