Panama Papers: ED seizes over Rs 41-cr valued prime real estate of Zavareh Poonawalla

The Enforcement Directorate on Monday seized three properties at a prime location in Mumbai valued more than Rs 41 crore as part of a foreign exchange violation probe against Zavareh Soli Poonawalla whose name figured in the Panama PapersZavareh Poonawalla is the brother of Cyrus S Poonawalla the founder and CMD of vaccine major Serum Institute of India SII The company and its promoters are not linked to this caseIn a statement the federal probe agency said Zavareh Poonawalla and his family member are accused of remitting foreign exchange abroad by misutilising the provisions of the LRS Liberalised Remittance SchemeAlso Read Adani issue Enforcement Directorate cannot abdicate its jurisdiction say opposition leadersThe Enforcement Directorate ED seized three immovable assets located at the Ceejay House in Mumbais Worli area to the extent of Rs 4164 crore under the provisions of the Foreign Exchange Management Act FEMA the statement saidZavareh Poonawalla and his family used the maximum permissible limit as available under the LRS and from the year 201112 they remitted money abroad via misdeclarations under the pretext of family maintenance and selfmaintenance etc the agency saidHowever none of their family members was residing abroad or holding NRI status it allegedThe entire funds remitted by Zavareh Poonawalla whose name was found in the Panama Papers revelations regarding offshore entities and his family members under LRS were invested into British Virgin Islandsbased Stallast Limited the ED saidDubbed the Panama Papers an investigation of a stockpile of records from Panamanian legal firm Mossack Fonseca by Washingtonbased International Consortium of Investigative Journalists ICIJ in 2016 had named several world leaders and celebrities who allegedly stashed away money abroad in offshore companiesInvestigators have said not all people whose name figured in this list were offendersThe ED found that funds remitted by Zavareh Poonawalla and his family members were utilised by Stallast Limited to purchase four apartments in the Paddington area of central London Multiple FEMA contraventions were seen in these transactions it allegedThe ED said besides misdeclarations in remittances Zavareh Poonawalla and his family members also wrongly claimed these investments as foreign portfolio investments In reality the foreign entity was completely controlled by them and thus they did overseas direct investment in a foreign wholly owned subsidiary without due permission of the Reserve Bank of India RBI the agency saidThe foreign assets were not declared to the RBI and they continued to hold the foreign assets and are in continuous enjoyment of the same it allegedThe properties abroad were acquired through the funds remitted under LRS to avoid reporting requirements to RBI and thus Zavareh Poonawalla misutilised the LRS the ED said Therefore the equivalent value of properties held by them in India have been seized under the provisions of Section 37A of the FEMA it saidThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever