A Bengaluru special court remanded Ozone Group Chairman Vasudevan Satyamurthy to 14-day ED custody in a money laundering case involving ₹927.22 crores, after the agency alleged proceeds of crime linked to real estate projects.
ED Secures 14-Day Custody of Ozone Group MD in Major Money Laundering Probe
Vasudevan Satyamurthy, Managing Director of Ozone Urbana Infra Developers Pvt Ltd, has been remanded to 14-day custody of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) by Additional City Civil and Sessions Judge Manjunath Sangreshi in Bengaluru. The order follows Satyamurthy’s arrest in connection with a money laundering case where the alleged proceeds of crime total ₹927.22 crores. The funds are said to be linked to fraudulent real estate schemes under the Ozone Group portfolio.
The ED filed an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) based on a predicate offence registered by a state agency for cheating and breach of trust. Investigators allege that investor monies were diverted through complex layers of transactions to create benami assets and inflate project valuations. The agency submitted that Satyamurthy played a central role in orchestrating financial flows designed to mask the origin of illicit funds, violating the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA).
The custody order allows the ED to press for deeper interrogation under Section 50 of PMLA, which permits the agency to question accused persons without legal representation for the first 7 days. The 14-day remand is significant given the scale of the alleged fraud and its pan-India investor impact. The case highlights increasing regulatory scrutiny of real estate developers leveraging off-plan sales for financial crime. Legal teams defending similar clients must anticipate enhanced ED focus on transaction patterns and disclosure norms under the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 (RERA).
Citations
- Enforcement Case No. XYZ of 2026 under PMLA
