The Enforcement Directorate's Indore zone has issued a Provisional Attachment Order against three commercial land parcels in village Hukmakhedi, Indore, valued at roughly Rs 3.91 crore. Officials confirmed the move on Friday.

The land sits in the name of M/s Vishwakarma Creations Private Limited, a company that ED investigators say received proceeds of crime traced back to Neo Corp International Limited (NCIL) and Poly Logic International Limited (PLIPL), along with their directors.

The case itself runs on two separate FIRs. One was registered by the CBI's Anti-Corruption Branch in Bhopal against Utkarsh Trivedi and others, over alleged cheating of a nationalised bank to the tune of Rs 57.47 crore. The other came from the CBI's Economic Offences Wing in Mumbai, naming NCIL along with directors Sunil Kumar Trivedi and Utkarsh Trivedi, alleging a wrongful loss of Rs 249.97 crore to a different nationalised bank. Add the two up and public sector banks are looking at a combined loss of Rs 307.44 crore.

According to the ED, the money didn't move straight from NCIL to Vishwakarma Creations. It went through what investigators describe as intermediary entities, controlled by the Trivedis, in a routing and layering exercise meant to obscure where the funds actually originated. Loan accounts belonging to NCIL and its related entities allegedly fed this chain before the funds landed with Vishwakarma Creations, where they were then used up or dissipated.

This isn't the first attachment in the probe. Earlier, the ED had already gone after a property abroad, at 24 Cygnet Avenue, Feltham, Middlesex, valued around GBP 2,45,000, which works out to about Rs 2.08 crore. Between the foreign property and the Hukmakhedi land, the agency's tally of attached assets in this case is climbing steadily, even if it's still a fraction of the Rs 307.44 crore banks say they lost.

The attachment is provisional, which under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act means it now goes before an adjudicating authority for confirmation. Nothing here amounts to a finding of guilt against Sunil Kumar Trivedi, Utkarsh Trivedi or the companies named. The underlying CBI cases are still the ones that will determine criminal liability, and the ED's action is a parallel financial trail, not a verdict.

What happens next depends on whether the adjudicating authority upholds this attachment and whether the ED digs up more properties linked to the same layering chain. Given how the case has unfolded so far, foreign asset one week, Indore land the next, it wouldn't be a surprise if there's more to come.