The Enforcement Directorate has secured two weeks of custodial interrogation of Ozone Group chairman Vasudevan Satyamurthy, telling a Bengaluru court it needs to trace where roughly Rs 927 crore collected from homebuyers under a ‘No Pre-EMI till possession’ scheme allegedly went.
Bengaluru: A special court in Bengaluru on October 1 remanded Vasudevan Satyamurthy, managing director of Ozone Urbana Infra Developers Pvt Ltd and chairman of the Ozone Group, to the custody of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for 14 days following his arrest in a money laundering case in which the agency puts the alleged proceeds of crime at about Rs 927.22 crore.
Additional City Civil and Sessions Judge Manjunath Sangreshi passed the order on the ED’s remand application in an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) registered against Ozone Urbana Infra Developers, Satyamurthy, Priya Vasudevan and others. He will remain in ED custody until October 14.
The allegations set out below are the ED’s case at the remand stage. They have not been tested at trial, and Satyamurthy is presumed innocent until proven guilty.
The ED’s case
The ECIR, according to the agency, rests on FIRs alleging cheating, criminal conspiracy and diversion or misappropriation of homebuyers’ funds, in which the CBI filed a chargesheet on July 15, 2026 covering 63 homebuyers across two projects. The ED claims that Ozone Group entities drew buyers into a ‘No Pre-EMI till possession’ subvention scheme and collected large sums towards bookings and housing loans even as several projects stayed incomplete and possession was not handed over.
Its investigation, the agency says, points to the same flats being allotted more than once, multiple housing loans raised against the same units, profile funding, booking receipts issued without actual payment, and diversion of money received from buyers and lenders. It also alleges that some flats allotted to buyers were later resold to others or handed to vendors who were owed dues, and says more than 400 complaints against Ozone Urbana are pending before Karnataka RERA.
The alleged money trail
The ED claims that about Rs 180 crore moved from Ozone Urbana to Tuscan Consultants & Developers Pvt Ltd, and from there substantial sums went to the personal accounts of Satyamurthy, Priya Vasudevan and entities linked to them. Satyamurthy’s own account, the agency alleges, received about Rs 41.15 crore from Tuscan Consultants, including roughly Rs 12.285 crore on June 6, 2018, and a further Rs 7.77 crore directly from Ozone Urbana, for which it describes his explanation as misleading and evasive.
The agency also points to a loan of about Rs 360 crore taken by Ozone Holdings Pvt Ltd against 55 acres of Ozone Urbana’s land, half of which it says went to Ozone Urbana and half to Ozone Projects Pvt Ltd for a Chennai project, and to transfers of about Rs 38 crore to Muthammal Estates Pvt Ltd and Rs 12.89 crore to Swaruba Builders for which, it says, no satisfactory business rationale was documented.
Why custody was sought
Special Public Prosecutor Madhu N. Rao, appearing for the ED, submitted that Satyamurthy had not given clear answers when examined under Section 50 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act on the money trail, the diversion of buyers’ funds and inter-corporate transactions. The agency contends that he exercised overall control of Ozone Urbana’s finances, project execution, fund-raising and banking, and that custodial interrogation is needed to trace the full trail, identify further assets and ascertain other beneficiaries. It cited digital devices, account books and documents seized in searches in August 2025.
Advocate Deepak Bhaskar appeared for Satyamurthy. His response to the specific allegations has not been reported.
Background: attachment already upheld
The ED provisionally attached properties worth about Rs 423.37 crore as alleged proceeds of crime in October 2025, and the Adjudicating Authority confirmed the attachment in March 2026. The company’s challenge to the attachment was dismissed by the Karnataka High Court on September 21, 2026.
Proceedings: ED remand application in ECIR against Ozone Urbana Infra Developers Pvt Ltd, Vasudevan Satyamurthy, Priya Vasudevan and Others
Court: Additional City Civil and Sessions Judge Manjunath Sangreshi, Bengaluru
Date of Order: October 1, 2026
For the ED: Madhu N. Rao, Special Public Prosecutor
For Vasudevan Satyamurthy: Deepak Bhaskar, Advocate