CHANDIGARH: The Directorate of Enforcement (ED), Gurugram Zonal Office, on Wednesday claimed to have arrested Raman Puri, Varun Puri and Vikram Puri – promoters and former directors of M/s Universal Buildwell Pvt Ltd – under the prevention of Money Laundering Act in a case related to alleged real estate fraud.
The arrested accused, apprehended Tuesday night, were absconding for more than seven years and were declared proclaimed offenders by various courts in predicate matters. They were apprehended by the Delhi Police.
The special PMLA court in Gurugram on Wednesday remanded the trio into ED custody until July 29.
The ED had initiated an investigation into the case based on more than 30 FIRs registered under various sections of the IPC across Delhi NCR against M/s Universal Buildwell Pvt Ltd, Raman Puri, Vikram Puri, and Varun Puri for failing to complete real estate projects on time and cheating the homebuyers/investors of their hard-earned money.
The company was taken to the CIRP (Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process), which resulted in a resolution plan for homebuyers/other financial contributors being accepted and NCLT (National Company Law Tribunal) ordering some assets to be delivered to the homebuyers, who were the financial creditors, and the remaining assets to be liquidated.
Most of the homebuyers had invested in the project before 2010.
The case stems from the fraudulent mobilisation of homebuyers/investors’ funds by the accused persons through Universal Buildwell Pvt Ltd, based on false promises of completing the project by 2010 and also promising assured returns in commercial projects.
The arrested persons are also accused of cheating various financial institutions through forgery and fraud. They reportedly transferred some assets at negligible rates, oversold existing inventory, and executed forged agreements for their personal benefits.
In this matter, data collected from the resolution professional revealed that the company, through their accused promoters, collected more than Rs 1,000 crore over 12 years on eight different projects in Gurugram and Faridabad, namely Universal Trade Tower, Universal Greens, Universal Business Park, Aura, Universal Square, Market Square, The Pavilion, and Universal Prime.
They allegedly utilised only part of the funds for development and siphoned off the funds to acquire lands and other assets for their personal gains through criminal misappropriation, cheating, forgery, and fraud.
