ED Attaches Rs 23 Crore in Andhra Skill Development Scam

New Delhi, Oct 15 (PTI) Fresh assets worth more than Rs 23 crore have been attached under the anti-money laundering law in the Andhra Pradesh State Skill Development Corporation (APSSDC) Siemens Project case, the Enforcement Directorate said Tuesday.

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu was arrested by the state CID in this case in September last year when Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy was the CM.

On September 9, the CID sleuths swooped in on Naidu at Nandyala and arrested him for his alleged role in the Rs 371-crore Skill Development Corporation scam case during his third stint (2014-2019) as the CM of the southern state.

The money laundering investigation stems from an Andhra Pradesh CID FIR filed against a company named Designtech Systems Private Limited (DTSPL) and others for "cheating" the Andhra Pradesh government by "diverting" and "siphoning off" funds invested by the state government in the Siemens project for other purposes.

A provisional order under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) was issued to attach properties like bank deposits and shares apart from residential properties located in Delhi-NCR, Mumbai and Pune, the ED said.

The assets are valued at Rs 23.54 crore.

Probe found Vikas Vinayak Khanvelkar, Managing Director of DTSPL, Soumyadri Sekhar Bose alias Suman Bose (former MD of Siemens Industry Software India Pvt Ltd) and their close associates Mukul Chandra Agarwal and Suresh Goyal "diverted" the government funds with the help of shell/defunct entities through multi-layered transactions and siphoned off the funds on the strength of "bogus" invoices under the pretext of supply of materials/services, the ED said in a statement.

"The services of entry providers were taken for the diversion of funds for which commission was paid to them," the federal agency said.

The agency had earlier attached fixed deposits worth Rs 31.20 crore of DTSPL as part of this investigation.

Khanvelkar, Bose, Agarwal and Goyal were arrested by the ED and it had filed a charge sheet before the special PMLA court in Visakhapatnam.

After the pre-dawn arrest on September 9, Naidu spent nearly two months in the Rajamahendravaram central jail.

However, an interim bail on October 31, which was made absolute on November 20, set Naidu free to prepare for the 2024 polls, enabling him to join the BJP-led NDA alliance along with Janasena to make a stellar comeback.