CBI to attach Raju’s 425 assets

CBI to attach Raju's 425 assets
The Properties Are Spread In Several Cities


Hyderabad: In yet another blow to the Rajus, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is now gearing up to attach 425 properties spread over 1224 acres acquired by disgraced Satyam founder B Ramalinga Raju through 31 front companies.
    These properties spread in Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam, Chennai, Bangalore and Nagpur were acquired by the Rajus by selling their shares in Satyam between April 10, 1999, and June 30, 2005. Of these, nearly 100 of them are worth over Rs 3 crore each. This is among a string of interesting revelations made by JL Negi, RBI general manager, who is with CBI's Economic Offences wing that is part of the multi-disciplinary investigation team looking into the Satyam fraud, in his presentation, 'Satyam scam-Case Study' at the three-day conference of senior CBI officials in Mumbai on Saturday.
    CBI is in the process of mapping these properties that will be attached under the provisions of the Criminal Law Amendment Ordinance of 1944.
    Incidentally, these 425 properties are in addition to the 444 properties spread over 4533 acres already attached by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
    This takes the total number of properties acquired by the Rajus through fraudulent methods to 935 spread over 5,757 acres. CBI has also found that Raju diverted Rs 154 crore to unconnected foreign companies like Global Networking Solutions, Infotech Solutions, Alpha Software and Tech Consultant Ltd from 1999 to 2002, which did not reflect in Saytam's books.
    For the first time, CBI has given the details of misappropriation of funds and diversion to accounts in British Virgin Islands by Raju. Negi's presentation states that USD$ 0.666 million was paid to Medbiquitous Services and that Raju purchased Medbiquitous stock worth $0.001 a share at a premium of $ 1 per share, which works out to almost thousand times the face value of the stock. Though CBI has been indicating that it may not file any new charge sheet, experts feel that with these new findings the agency may go in for a fourth charge sheet.
    CBI has also blamed poor corporate governance for the multi-billion dollar scam.
    In a shocking disclosure, Negi said that the company's directors were not only given handsome remuneration by Raju, but were given Satyam stock options at a mere Rs 2 a share as against the market price of Rs 500 per share.
    Slamming the company's directors for failing to perform their duty, Negi said: "The directors were sponsored by B Ramalinga Raju. They acted as rubber stamps and not even a single dissent note was recorded. Meetings were conducted in a perfunctionary manner and promoters were always present to influence the decision."
    Satyam's board of directors included some globally renowned figures like Pentium chip inventor Vinod K Dham, corporate governance expert and Harvard School faculty Krishna G Palepu, former Indian School of Business dean M Mohan Rao, Harvard University fellow Mangalam Srinivasan as well as some government officials like IAS officer V P Rama Rao, Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) chairman and IIT Delhi director VS Raju, former cabinet secretary TR Prasad.