In accordance with the terms of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA), the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) conducted search operations on June 1, 2023, at seven sites in Delhi and Gurugram that belonged to the IREO Group and the M3M Group for money laundering, syphoning off, and misappropriation.
ED has been looking into IREO Group for stealing, syphoning off, and misappropriating investor and consumer monies. Multiple FIRs filed against IREO Group served as the basis for the start of the investigations. According to the ED’s findings, the M3M group was also used to launder significant sums of money totalling hundreds of crores.
According to the ED’s investigations, one of the transactions included M3M Group receiving $400,000,000 from IREO Group via many layers of shell firms. The transaction was recorded by IREO in its accounts as payments for development rights. The M3M group held the land, which had a market worth of about Rs. 4 crores. For a sum of Rs. 10 crores, M3M Group first sold the development rights to five shell firms. The five businesses are allegedly unrelated to one another. Investigations have shown that M3M Group was the operator of the five shell firms.
The same land’s development rights were then sold by the 5 shell firms to IREO Group for around Rs. 400 crores. The 5 shell firms quickly transferred the Rs. 400 Crore they had received from IREO Group to M3M Group via several layers and shell corporations. The M3M Group, led by its promoters Basant Bansal and Roop Kumar Bansal and his family, owned and ran all the shell businesses.
In this manner, IREO and M3M stole around Rs. 400 crores from investors and consumers, and the proceeds of crime stayed with the M3M Group, where M3M utilised them for other investments and debt repayment. IREO Group, on the other hand, made no attempts to develop the land and instead began to write off the investments each year.
The owners, controllers, and promoters of the M3M Group, notably Basant Bansal, Roop Kumar Bansal, Pankaj Bansal, and other important individuals, purposefully evaded investigations during the search action under section 17 of the PMLA, 2002.
Approximately 17 high-end luxury automobiles, including Ferrari, Lamborghini, Land Rover, Rolls-Royce, Bentley, and Mercedes Maybach, were discovered during the search operation. Seized items include money totalling Rs. 15 lakh, silver and jewellery valued at Rs. 60 crores, digital proof, books of accounts, and many damning documents. Additional investigations are being conducted.
