The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested four more accused on money laundering charges in the illegal coal levy scam of Chhattisgarh in which several others, including an IAS officer and deputy secretary to Chattisgarh Chief Minister, were also arrested earlier.
The arrested accused persons were produced before the PMLA Special Court at Raipur that remanded them to three-day ED custody till Monday, the agency said in a statement.
The ED had earlier issued a provisional attachment order attaching ‘proceeds of crime’ worth Rs 152.5 crore and has filed a Prosecution Complaint or chargesheet under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
Recently, searches were conducted in Chhattisgarh, Delhi, and Pune on specific inputs following which the four accused persons were arrested, it said.
Those arrested are Deepesh Taunk, a close confidant of one of the main accused in the case, Saumya Chaurasia, Deputy Secretary in the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) and “knowingly involved in Money Laundering” and Sandeep Kumar Nayak (Surajpur) and Shiv Shankar Nag (Korba), Mining Officers who knowingly and willingly assisted the syndicate of Suryakant Tiwari in committing extortion and acquisition of the proceeds of crime, the ED said.
Another accused arrested is Rajesh Chaudhary a common man who cheats on people by claiming to work as a middleman to settle cases.
“ED investigation has established that close family members of Sunil Agarwal (an accused arrested by ED and presently in Judicial Custody) were making desperate efforts to secure the release of Sunil Agarwal, soon after his arrest by ED on 12.10.2022. At that time, this self-acclaimed 'liaisoner', got in touch with the relatives of Sunil Agarwal,” it said.
Since Rajesh Chaudhary had acquired part of the proceeds of crime as revealed by investigation, on getting specific intelligence inputs, ED on its own launched an operation. Chaudhary was traced and arrested under PMLA. “During his interrogation, it was discovered that he had also created fake ID Cards of a ED officer and was also declaring himself as an ED employee in various KYC documents submitted to banks,” it said.
Meanwhile, in a separate case, the agency on Saturday said it has attached assets worth Rs 24.13 lakh of an Andhra Pradesh-based trader who allegedly under-valued goods imported from China.
The ED has attached some residential premises located in the Prakasam district of Andhra Pradesh and other immovable properties of M Hari Babu, the proprietor of Bhavani Diamond Tools on money laundering charges. Babu evaded customs duty to the tune of Rs 2 crore through Bhavani Diamond Tools, the agency added.