The Enforcement Directorate on Tuesday night arrested the Maharashtra Gomantak Party (MGP) leader and businessman Rohan Harkar, who is allegedly considered a mastermind in a multi-colored land scam in Goa to plot a conspiracy to a conspiracy for illegally appropriate land through illegally suitable land through his authority.
After the BJP denied the ticket, Harmakar failed the 2022 Goa Assembly Election as an independent candidate from Kumbarjua constituency. He joined MGP in 2024. After the arrest, the ED conducted raids at several places on 24 April and 25, under the prevention of the Money Laundering Act (PMLA) regarding the alleged scam.
Harmkar was produced in the PMLA court in Goa on Wednesday and was sent to ad custody for 14 days. He was earlier nominated in two cases of land grabbing, which are being investigated by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Goa Police. In November last year, he was arrested by the Goa police for allegedly attacking a businessman in Rapora.
The ED claimed that the discoveries highlighted the property documents, the approximate current market value of which is more than Rs 1,000 crore-which includes fake title deeds indicate the manipulation of the records and indicate fraud transfer of high-value land parcels, which are spread over several lakh square meters in primary tourists, which are unjust, unjust, Arapo.
In a press statement on 25 April, Ed stated: “The discovery was conducted on the basis of intelligence and later financial investigation held in the case, which revealed that a person is a major mastermind, Rohan Harmaller, who is related to illegal landlords through a large-scale conspiracy to create a large-scale conspiracy to other colleagues as well as a large-scale conspiracy.”
The agency accused these properties, originally owned by individuals and family wealth, sold illegally without their consent, causing serious financial and legal crisis to such victims.
“In addition, the original documents of immovable properties worth more than Rs 600 crore were confiscated during the search action. It was more discovered during the discovery that the income of the crime generated was carried forward through various individuals and benami institutions and finally invested in immovable property, luxury vehicles and other high-heroes. Ilbur was invested in illegal assets.
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The Goa government on June 15, 2022 formed an SIT to investigate cases of illegal land transfer and to investigate cases of land grabbing using fake documents. SIT examined 44 FIRs associated with more than 100 properties – about 1.5 lakh square meters of land – and 56 arrests including some officials of the Archives Department (till December 2024). On September 9, 2022, the state government appointed the Commission of investigation under the chairmanship of former Bombay High Court Judge Justice VK Jadhav (retired) to investigate cases of land-hosts on 9 September 2022.
The Indian Express had earlier reported the findings of the report of the Commission of inquiry. The report of the investigation expanded how the government records were tampered with in a “systematic and organized” manner and forged sale deeds with Portuguese-era calligraphy were put in the record, allegedly “along with employees of the Archaeological and Archeology”.
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