Louis Berger case: ED attaches assets of Kamat, Alemao

The ED on Thursday attached assets worth Rs 1.95 crore of former Goa Chief Minister Digamber Kamat and sitting MLA Churchill Alemao in the Louis Berger money laundering case.

The agency said it issued a provisional order, under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), attaching Rs 1.20 crore properties including land in the Gogal area, residential building at Taligao and fixed deposits worth Rs 41.35 lakh of Kamat.

It also attached eight apartments in Varca village worth Rs 75 lakh (book value) of Alemao, the lone NCP MLA.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had registered a PMLA case in 2015, based on a Goa police FIR.

It was alleged that the US-based firm had bribed Indian officials with several crores of rupees to win two major water developmental projects in Goa and Guwahati.

The Rs 1,031-crore project, funded by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), was approved when Digamber Kamat government was in power for augmenting water supply in south Goa and laying sewerage lines in the state's major cities.

The company had won the consultancy for the project.

Alemao, also the former state Public Works Department minister, JICA project director Anand Wachasunder and Louis Berger's Vice President Satyakam Mohanty were arrested in the case by the state police earlier.

It was alleged that the state ministers received bribes to the tune of $976,000 to grant contracts for the JICA-funded project in Goa.