The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Monday arrested the kingpin of trade-based money laundering BK Goyal and secured a five-day remand from a designated court in Visakhapatnam in connection with the ongoing probe in the money laundering case.
Goyal is suspected to have been involved in outward remittances of Rs 1,500 crore to destinations like China, Hong Kong and Singapore.
“Accused Bhimender Kumar Goyal has been arrested by ED in connection with an ongoing PMLA investigation in which he is the kingpin of an International trade-based money laundering network used to send compensatory hawala payments abroad for importing under-valued goods into India,” the ED said in a statement.
The ED had initiated investigation under Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) on the basis of FIR registered by Andhra Pradesh Police against Vaddi Mahesh and others on the complaint of the Income Tax Department under Indian Penal Code Sections relating to cheating, forgery, forgery for purpose of cheating, using forged documents as genuine and criminal conspiracy.
Investigation under PMLA revealed that accused Mahesh along with others had incorporated several shell companies and firms and opened bank accounts with various banks in the names of those companies/firms and remitted huge amounts of Foreign Outward Remittances equivalent to R 1,500 crore to various companies in Singapore, China and Hong Kong in the guise of import of non-existent 'customised software', it said.
Mahesh admitted that he had remitted foreign remittances to companies in Singapore, Hong Kong and China at the instructions of Goyal.
Investigation also revealed that Goyal is a habitual smuggler who has several pending cases against him with Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) and customs department for evasion of customs duty for import of under-valued goods and outright smuggling of goods into India, it further said.
Goyal was the mastermind and on his instructions a complex network of shell companies and firms was created by Mahesh.