Indian authorities have nabbed a key suspect in a massive land scam rocking Goa. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) in Panaji arrested Mohammed Suhail, also known as Michael, on September 22. Officials say he’s the mastermind behind a syndicate that illegally grabbed numerous properties across the state. The arrest happened under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) of 2002.
Suhail was already in judicial custody at Colvale Correctional Home for a separate scheduled offense. ED officers pulled him out and brought him before the Special Court (PMLA) in Merces, which handed them four days to question him.
The probe kicked off from an FIR and a charge sheet filed by Goa’s Special Investigation Team (SIT) on land grabbing. Police had charged Suhail, his wife Anjum Shaikh, and associate Nure Faijal Bhatkar with serious crimes like cheating, forging documents, and using fake papers—violations under India’s Indian Penal Code (IPC).
ED investigators uncovered Suhail as the kingpin of this operation. The group targeted vacant lands, forged death certificates to invent fake legal heirs, and whipped up phony succession deeds. For instance, they grabbed a property in Anjuna this way and flipped it for Rs 50 lakh, pocketing illegal proceeds from the crime.
The scam runs deep, with the crew spotting empty plots, faking ownership docs, and tweaking government records to build bogus histories. They’d transfer the lands into their accomplices’ names and sell them off quickly.
This isn’t Suhail’s first run-in with the law. In a connected case, ED has already seized 52 properties worth about Rs 232.73 crore and charged Suhail along with 35 others. During that probe, Suhail himself confessed to grabbing over 100 properties illegally.
Now, with him in custody, ED hopes to dig into the money trail, figure out how the dirty cash got used, and expose more players in this sprawling Goa land grabbing racket. The investigation continues.
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