ED to launch massive drive against infra, real estate firms in Hyderabad, Bengaluru

Hyderabad: The Enforcement Directorate is said to have set the stage to launch a massive drive against the infra and real estate firms in Hyderabad and Bengaluru. The proposed raids are based on credible information about money laundering by certain big wigs.

Sources said special teams were formed to carry out the raids and instructions were issued by the top brass of the Union finance ministry to make the violators cough up at least Rs 2,000 crore before the end of the current fiscal.

Sources said many of these firms had availed of thousands of crores of rupees as loans from banks producing fake sureties and in some cases even without showing any collateral security. The amounts were diverted and in some cases the investigating agencies suspect that they were used to fund the electioneering in different states including Telangana in 2018.

The enforcement agency also intensified its investigation into the Madhya Pradesh irrigation tender scam involving the infra companies based out of the two Telugu states. Mantena Infra was found manipulating the online tender portal to grab irrigation contracts worth more than Rs 1,000 crore during the regime of the Congress’ Kamal Nath.

Soures said the investigating agencies have been looking into the involvement of several other infra companies including HES, Max Infra, Sarala, AMR and GVPR which acted as sub contractors in Madhya Pradesh.

GVPR is owned by one Sivasankar Reddy, brother-in-law of former IAS official Gopal Reddy who was questioned by the ED in connection with the irrigation tender scam.