ED attaches Chaitanya Baghel's assets worth Rs 61.2 crore in Chhattisgarh

RAIPUR:Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) Raipur zonal office has provisionally attached assets worth ₹61.20 crore belonging to Chaitanya Baghel, son of former Chhattisgarh chief minister and senior Congress leader Bhupesh Baghel, in connection with its ongoing money-laundering probe into the alleged liquor scam, the agency said on Thursday in a statement.The attachment, carried out on Nov 10 under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), covers both immovable and movable assets. ED officials said the seized holdings include residential plots and agricultural parcels valued at about ₹59.96 crore, and bank balances and fixed deposits totalling around ₹1.24 crore.The action follows an investigation that the ED opened on the basis of an FIR registered by the Anti-Corruption Bureau/Economic Offences Wing (ACB/EOW), Raipur.

Police inquiries into the liquor allotment and licensing process in the state, the agency said, have alleged the scam inflicted a massive loss on the state exchequer and produced proceeds of crime (POC) exceeding ₹2,500 crore, which were siphoned off to benefit a network of accused parties.ED investigators alleged, "Chaitanya Baghel occupied a central position in the alleged liquor syndicate and acted as the controller of its accounts."

The probe statement claimed he supervised collection, channelisation and distribution of illicit funds and subsequently “layered” those proceeds through his real-estate business to present them as legitimate. The ED said, "{roceeds were invested into a real-estate project named “Vitthal Green” under his proprietorship, M/s Baghel Developers."Chaitanya Baghel was arrested by the ED on July 18, 2025 and is currently in judicial custody, the agency stated.The ED said this attachment is part of a broader, multi-agency probe that has already yielded several high-profile arrests. Earlier in the case, the ED detained former bureaucrat Anil Tuteja (Ex-IAS) and other businessmen including Arvind Singh, Trilok Singh Dhillon, Anwar Dhebar, Arun Pati Tripathi (ITS) and Kawasi Lakhma — the then excise minister and current MLA — in connection with alleged irregularities linked to the liquor allotment process.The agency also noted that the ₹61.20 crore attachment follows earlier provisional seizures of immovable property valued at roughly ₹215 crore, signalling a continuing drive to freeze assets said to be tainted proceeds of crime.A provisional attachment under the PMLA is an interim legal measure that prevents the alleged proceeds of crime from being alienated while investigations and prosecution progress. ED teams said they will continue forensic accounting, detailed examination of property records, bank trails and seized documents to track the flow of funds and identify any accomplices or facilitators.