look news india
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has carried out one of its biggest and most aggressive actions ever under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) against a major corporate company operating in West Bengal and its directors. The Central Investigation Agency has frozen 139 bank accounts linked to the company and its syndicate with immediate effect on the basis of serious allegations of large-scale financial fraud, illegal fund diversion and money laundering through Hawala network. During this marathon raid conducted simultaneously in several sensitive districts of Kolkata and surrounding areas, the investigating officers have seized three very expensive luxury vehicles, huge amount of cash, digital devices and incriminating documents related to suspicious financial transactions purchased by the company’s operatives with the proceeds of crime. This quick and strict action by the agency has created a huge uproar in the corporate and political corridors of the state.
According to highly placed sources of the agency, special teams of the Enforcement Directorate, under tight security cover of the Central Paramilitary Forces (CRPF), simultaneously raided the company’s registered corporate offices, branches and luxurious private residences of directors located in Howrah and North 24 Parganas, including Salt Lake, New Town, Alipore and Park Street in Kolkata. The investigation team had launched this coordinated search operation after several days of recce and financial intelligence inputs. During an intensive investigation that lasted hours, officials found that the company’s operators were running a parallel banking system to send money abroad and to various shell companies. Three luxury vehicles like Mercedes, BMW and Audi were seized from the raid site, which were being used by the main accused of fund manipulation for tours of their benami properties. Additionally, huge amount of encrypted data has been recovered from electronic lockers, hard drives, laptops and mobile phones, which has been preserved for forensic examination.
The most shocking revelation in the investigation has come out from the analysis of bank accounts. The agency found in the preliminary investigation that this company had registered dozens of shell companies by misusing the PAN card, Aadhar card and KYC documents of poor and unknown people with ordinary income. 139 separate accounts were opened in the name of these companies in various nationalized and private banks, with the total volume of transactions reaching crores of rupees. Huge amounts of cash were deposited in these accounts and then through the technique of layering, the money was transferred to several accounts and shown as legitimate investment or unsecured loan in the books of the main company. To prevent the money trail from spreading further, the investigating authorities have issued a notice to the banking system and immediately imposed a complete freeze on the operation of all 139 accounts, resulting in the company’s working capital worth crores of rupees getting stuck.
This action of ED was initiated on the basis of preliminary FIRs (FIRs) and complaints filed by the state police and central financial investigation agencies. According to the preliminary investigation report, the company had raised huge sums of money from thousands of common investors and middle-class families by luring the public with attractive interest rates, real estate investments and Ponzi-style high return schemes. When the time for maturity of investors came, the company management started defaulting in payments and the funds were diverted to other subsidiaries. The capital sanctioned in the form of bank loans, worth crores of rupees, was also spent on personal luxuries, purchase of expensive cars and acquisition of benami immovable properties instead of investing in scheduled business projects.
The Enforcement Directorate is now busy connecting the links of international money trail and Hawala network in this case. Due to West Bengal’s geographical location adjacent to international borders, the agency fears that a large part of the cash withdrawn from these 139 bank accounts may have been transferred to foreign accounts or tax haven countries across the border through informal hawala operators. Several foreign transaction IDs, anonymous invoices and strong clues of fake billing have been found from the seized computers. The ED has also taken under investigation the company’s chief chartered accountant (CA) and financial advisors, who provided legal and technical help in designing this entire shell company network.
Following the freezing of bank accounts and seizure of movable assets, the ED has issued strict legal summons to the company’s directors, shareholders and key managerial officers (KMPs) to appear in person at the zonal office of CGO Complex in Salt Lake for questioning. Officials say that if the accused do not cooperate with the interrogation or are unable to give a valid account of the sources of the seized funds and purchase of luxury vehicles, they can also be formally arrested under Section 19 of the PMLA. Along with this, notices are being prepared by the agency for provisional attachment of multi-storey buildings, commercial plots and other immovable assets of the company in the coming days.