The Enforcement Directorate today raided the residence and office of Merlin Group chairman Sushil Mohta, and seven other places in connection with a money laundering case, allegedly involving the use of forged documents to create a fake ownership chain in connection with a large residential project in the city.
While ED officials were tight-lipped, it is learnt that the action followed receipt of a complaint of money laundering in February, wherein it was stated that Mohta, his son, Saket Mohta, directors and senior officials including Dilip Chaudhary, Vikash Memani, Saurav Majumdar and Ranjan Chakraborty, along with several others were involved in the matter.
According to the complaint, a copy of which is with The Statesman, the accused persons “acting in concert and in an organised manner, have fraudulently manufactured a false and non-existent right, title and interest over the said property (3.63 acres in Anandapur, Kolkata) by forging and fabricating valuable securities, including documents purporting to be judicial and public instruments, which falsely project extinguishment” of the complainant’s ownership “and conferment of ownership in favour of the accused persons”.
The complainant, Mohan Chandra Mondal, a resident of Anandapur, alleged that “the forged instruments so relied upon are not ordinary false documents but are valuable securities within the meaning of law, as they purport to create, declare, recognise and confirm proprietary rights in immovable property of very high commercial value and are repeatedly used as genuine before public authorities, statutory bodies, financial institutions and members of the public to project lawful ownership.”
He further alleged that “on the strength of such forged valuable securities, the accused persons have projected themselves as lawful owners of the said property and have undertaken large-scale construction and commercial exploitation thereon under the real estate project styled as ‘Merlin Niyasa’, which is being marketed as a lawful residential project to the general public.”
The complaint said: “That Sushil Mohta the monies so collected from the public, as well as the assets created and acquired therefrom, have been generated directly and indirectly from offences relating to forgery of valuable securities, cheating and criminal conspiracy, and therefore prima facie constitute ‘proceeds of crime’ as defined under Section 2(1)(u) of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002.”
In January, a First Information Report was lodged at Anandapur police station in the same matter accusing Mohta, his son and others of fraud, forgery, participating in organised criminal activity and criminal conspiracy. The offences carry jail terms of between five years and life.
Mondal, who asserts ownership of the land through an unbroken chain of title Saket Mohta dating back to 1943, had initially filed a complaint before the Anandapur police station, but when the police refused to act against the powerful Mohtas, who are said to be close to Mayor Firhad Hakim, he approached a court seeking directions for registration of a case.
The case (FIR no. 15 of 2026) – under sections 111(2) (b), 318 (4), 338, 339, 340(2) and 61 (2) of the Bharat Nyaya Sanhita – was registered on directions of the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate, South 24 Parganas.
According to the FIR, the Merlin Group, acting through its promoters Sushil Mohta and Saket Mohta and through its influential functionaries including Mimani, acted in concert with several other individuals and companies Vikash Memani to unlawfully appropriate the property by manufacturing and deploying forged documents – including judicial orders and the Calcutta Gazette – before multiple authorities.
Central to Mondal’s complaint is a purported compromise decree said to have been passed in a civil suit in 1959, which, upon verification and scrutiny, was allegedly found to be non-existent and forged.
It is alleged that this document was used repeatedly by the Mohtas, Mimani and other accused persons before civil courts, land revenue authorities, municipal bodies and tribunals as a genuine judicial record in order to assert rights over the land and to justify construction activities undertaken by the Merlin Group on the Rs 600-crore Merlin Niyasa project.