Karti Chidambaram has tennis club in Spain, house in UK: ED

Former Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram’s son Karti Chidambaram bought a tennis club in Spain and cottages in Britain, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) claims.

The land and tennis club in Spain’s Barcelona is slated to be worth Rs 15 crore, the ED says, adding that Karti Chidambaram has also bought property in India and overseas worth Rs 54 crore.

The ED has reasons to believe the money with which they were purchased allegedly came from the bribe in INX Media deal, the case in which Chidambaram senior is embroiled and seeking exemption from arrest.

The ED wants to take the former minister in its custody to question him on the source of Karti Chidambaram’s funds. Both are accused in the INX Media money laundering case, and are also being probed in the multi-crore Aircel-Maxis Deal. Both the cases are being probed by Central Bureau of Investigation and the ED.

Both the Chidambarams are being charge sheeted right now and some of their properties too have been attached. The agencies have also attached Chidambaram’s posh Jor Bagh bungalow that is estimated to be of Rs 16 crore.

The former FM’s son also has a fixed deposit with the Indian Overseas Bank’s Nungambakkam branch in Chennai which has Rs 9.23 crore. He has another FD of Rs 90 lakh of Advantage Strategic Consulting Pvt Ltd (ASCPL) with the DCB Bank in Chennai. Both of them are being attached by the ED.

Another payments of Rs 3.09 crore by former media baron Peter Mukherjea, husband of Indrani Mukherjea - a co-accused in the INX Media case, to the ASCPL has been being detected by ED. The agency suspects that the transactions were controlled by none other than Karti Chidambaram himself.

As Chidambaram senior remains incommunicado, more details of the fortune of his son are tumbling out.

(The story has been published from a wire feed without any modifications to the text)