RAIPUR: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has provisionally attached properties worth over Rs 1,000 crore in market value in connection with the alleged Chhattisgarh liquor scam, intensifying its crackdown on what it described as a deeply entrenched syndicate involving bureaucrats, businessmen and excise-linked entities. In a statement issued on Monday, the ED’s Raipur zonal office said it had issued three provisional attachment orders under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), attaching assets with a deed value of around Rs 200 crore linked to the alleged scam. The agency said its investigation, based on an FIR registered by the EOW/ACB, found that a liquor syndicate led by businessman Anwar Dhebar and retired IAS officer Anil Tuteja allegedly manipulated Chhattisgarh’s excise system between 2019 and 2023 to generate proceeds of crime exceeding Rs 2,883 crore. According to ED, the alleged racket involved artificial inflation of liquor procurement rates, clandestine manufacture of unaccounted liquor and extraction of commissions through FL-10A licences granted to favoured entities. One of the key attachments includes immovable properties allegedly linked to businessman Vikas Agrawal and Anwar Dhebar. ED alleged that Agrawal acted as the syndicate’s “ground-level financial manager”, routing commissions collected from distilleries and FL-10A licensees to Dhebar. The agency said several benami properties in Raipur, including plots in Dhebar city homes and land parcels allegedly held through shell firms, were attached as proceeds of crime. The total attachment under this PAO is estimated at around Rs 30 crore. In a major development, ED also attached a premium hotel property located in Anjuna, North Goa, owned by a private limited company. The agency claimed the hotel, valued at around Rs 110 crore, was acquired entirely through unaccounted cash generated from the liquor scam and transported at the instance of Chaitanya Baghel, son of former CM. The third attachment targeted bank accounts, shares and mutual funds of three FL-10A licence-holder companies, alleging these firms were forced to part with 50–60% of their profits to the syndicate, amounting to nearly Rs 51 crore. The ED further stated it has filed its sixth supplementary prosecution complaint before the Special PMLA Court in Raipur, naming four more accused — Vijay Bhatia, T Bhuvaneshwar Rao, Probir Sharma and Nikhil Chandrakar. With this, the total number of accused in the case has risen to 85, the agency said.