Sahara Prime City Land Scam: Major ED action against Sahara Group; Evidence seized in raids in ‘these’ 3 states

Sahara Prime City Land Scam: In its crackdown on the Sahara Prime City land scam, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) reportedly conducted raids at several locations of the company and its officials in Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka and seized electronic evidence. The ED’s Kolkata divisional office conducted raids on March 2 in Anantapur (Andhra Pradesh), Ballari (Karnataka), Bhubaneswar and Berhampur (Odisha).

During the operation, digital evidence such as WhatsApp communications, contacts and call records were seized. The ED said financial records and account books of the concerned organizations and other criminal documents have been seized for detailed investigation. Also, statements of several people were recorded under Section 17 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002.

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The search operations were related to the sale of a piece of land owned by Sahara Prime City Limited at Berhampur in Odisha. Meanwhile, approximately 32 acres (out of total 43 acres) of land was fraudulently sold in December 2025 based on the annulled board resolution in favor of a Sahara employee, which is in violation of the Supreme Court guidelines. A discrepancy was found between the stated sale amount and the estimated market value.

Earlier, ED had initiated investigations in several states based on FIRs registered against HICCSL and others. More than 500 FIRs have been registered against various Sahara Group companies, of which more than 300 relate to offenses under the PMLA, including large-scale fraud against depositors by forceful recovery of deposits and denial of maturity amounts.

Also, the Sahara Group was running a Ponzi scheme. Funds of the depositors were managed in an arbitrary manner without the supervision of the depositors, the maturity amount was not repaid but reinvested and the books were manipulated to conceal such repayments. The investigation also revealed that large donations were transferred from one company to another for no commercial reason.

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The ED further said, “Finally, substantial donations were found on four co-operative societies. Despite the financial crisis, the Sahara Group continued to collect fresh deposits. Due to continuous non-payment of maturity amounts to depositors, the outstanding donations, which include a huge interest component, have increased significantly over the years compared to the principal amount collected from depositors. It has been revealed that large sums of money have been diverted to create benami assets, lend and misuse them for personal use, leading to Deprived of their rightful dues.” In this case, five provisional seizure orders have been issued to seize several properties of the Sahara Group, including benami lands and properties belonging to others.