Enforcement Directorate busts Rs 600 crore laundering module
TNN | Oct 16, 2015, 01.38 AM IST
SUVs, posh villas, shares in beach-side hotels and vast tracts of agricultural land are some of the purchases made by the accused of the multi-crore scam in NSEL.
The ED has opened investigation against eight other banks for their alleged role in the latest case. The banks under scanner include Axis Bank, ING Vysya Bank, ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Indusind Bank, Dhanlaxmi Bank, YES Bank and DCB Bank.
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"Foreign exchange to the tune of Rs 557 crore has already been sent out of India through 11 bogus firms under the garb of imports. Some of the companies are Daksh Impex, Pacific Exim, Alaska Trading, Aadinath Exim, Apple Computers, Sai International and Jai Bharat Impex," ED director Karnal Singh told TOI.
A case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) has been registered against the accused and more arrests are likely. The private banks are being investigated for their role in facilitating the alleged money laundering activities.
Preliminary investigation revealed one of the accused Manish Jain, who has been arrested along with his accomplice Sanjay Agarwal, operated 66 accounts at the Oriental Bank of Commerce (Rajpur Branch) in Ghaziabad. Bank records showed Rs 505 crore was deposited by Jain and remitted abroad through this bank during 2006 to 2010, said ED spokesperson Rajeshwar Singh.
Jain, a resident of Ghaziabad, was making illegal fund transfers to Hong Kong on the basis of forged import documents. He had two firms in Hong Kong--Tanvi Enterprises and Pacific Exim—where the funds were remitted. The accounts in Hong Kong were in the HSBC Bank from where the funds were transferred to China, Singh said.
The ED had last week busted one of the modules involved in money laundering to the tune of Rs 6,000 crore through a Bank of Baroda branch in the national capital. It arrested four people, including an HDFC Bank employee who was one of the conduits. The CBI had arrested two BoB officials separately in the case.
The BoB case is one of trade-based money laundering where several modules were engaged in registration of shell companies abroad and in Delhi and indulged in fake imports and exports. The latest case of the Oriental Bank has revealed similar modus operandi in which fake customs invoices were generated to remit money abroad. Most of the deposits in the Indian banks were made in unaccounted cash.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Enforcement-Directorate-busts-Rs-600-crore-laundering-module/articleshow/49395147.cms