Mumbai, March 2026 – The Enforcement Directorate has provisionally attached immovable assets worth ₹271 crore belonging to Rajendra Lodha, former director of Macrotech Developers (formerly Lodha Developers), and his associates under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. The attachment covers land parcels in Panvel and Shahapur talukas of Maharashtra and brings the total value of assets seized or frozen under the ongoing probe to over ₹359 crore. Lodha is currently in judicial custody following his arrest earlier this year.
The Fraud Mechanism: Undervalued Sales, Inflated Purchases, and Proxy Entities
The ED’s investigation has established that Rajendra Lodha allegedly engineered a sustained diversion of company funds through a two-pronged method. On one side, company-owned land parcels were sold to proxy entities linked to the accused at significantly below-market rates, one parcel in Panvel with a market value of nearly ₹10 crore was transferred to a front entity for just ₹48 lakh, resulting in a direct loss of approximately ₹9.5 crore to the company. On the other side, land was acquired by proxy firms and resold back to Lodha Developers at inflated prices, with the difference siphoned out as proceeds of crime. These transactions were carried out without board approval and were supported by fabricated memorandums of understanding.
Prior Seizures and the Scale of the Probe
The current attachment follows an earlier phase of the investigation in November 2025, when the ED conducted searches across 14 locations in the Mumbai metropolitan region, leading to the seizure and freezing of assets worth approximately ₹88 crore. The cumulative attachment of ₹359 crore reflects the breadth of the alleged fund diversion network, which operated through multiple layered entities to distance beneficial ownership from the original transactions.
Location Context: Panvel and Shahapur as Speculative Land Markets
Both Panvel and Shahapur talukas are active real estate corridors in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region. Panvel sits at the intersection of the Mumbai-Pune Expressway and the upcoming Navi Mumbai International Airport zone, making it one of MMR’s fastest-appreciating land markets. Shahapur, located along the Mumbai-Nashik highway, has seen sustained speculative land activity. The use of undervalued land transfers in these high-velocity markets is a well-documented method for obscuring beneficial ownership and extracting value from listed real estate companies.
