The Enforcement Directorate said on Saturday that the bank account of the Udayanidhi Stalin Foundation was attached after an investigation following an FIR registered by police against the directors and founders of the Kallal Group.
This comes after a complaint by Gaurav Chachra, Director of Pettigo Commercio Internacional Lda, a subsidiary of the UK based Lyca Group, which has a significant presence in India in the form of Lyca Productions, Lyca Hotels etc.
He had alleged that the Kallal Group and its directors Saravanan Palaniappan, Vijaykumaran, Aravinth Raj and Vijay Ananth along with Mrs Lakshmi Muthuraman and Preetha Vijayananth had defrauded the Lyca Group subsidiary to the tune of Rs 114.37 crore.
During the ED investigation, it was found that the fraud actually amounted to Rs 300 crore as the Lyca Group had also made other investments/loans to the accused group and its entities without any due diligence or rationale.
As a result, searches were carried out on both the accused and complainants on April 27 and May 16, which led to the discovery of incriminating evidence in the form of digital evidence, documents, properties, suspicious cash and hawala transactions which are still under the ED scanner.
The ED has provisionally attached various immovable properties across Tamil Nadu, valued at Rs 36.3 crore and further attached Rs 34.7 lakh in the bank account of the Udayanidhi Stalin Foundation as it received proceeds of the crime amounting to Rs 1 crore.
The trustees of the foundation failed to explain the rationale for the receipt from the parties involved in the case.