New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested Deepak Agarwal and Ayush Goyal for their involvement in a trade-based money laundering scam in which funds to the tune of Rs 1500 crore were sent outside India in the guise of import of fake “customised software”. Both the accused were remanded to judicial custody. However, the Metropolitan Sessions Judge, Visakhapatnam, has granted custody of Deepak Agarwal to ED for three days beginning March 6.
The ED has also sought custodial interrogation of Ayush Goyal.
The ED had initiated investigation on the basis of FIR registered by Andhra Pradesh Police against Vaddi Mahesh and others, on the complaint of Income Tax Department.
“Investigation revealed that Vaddi Mahesh, in collusion with others, had incorporated various shell firms and companies in India and opened bank accounts in the names of these firms/companies. Vaddi Mahesh received funds from various persons viz., Pramod Agarwal, Ayush Goyal, Vikas Gupta and Vinit Goenka which were deposited by him into the bank accounts of his firms and further transferred to the bank accounts of his shell companies,” the ED said in a statement.
Subsequently, the funds were remitted outside India to various companies in Singapore, Hong Kong and China in the guise of payments for the import of “customized software”, it further said.
Mahesh had prepared fake invoices purported to have been raised by those overseas companies, in the name of his Indian companies and had arranged fake certificates with the help of Chartered Accountants, who certified that the “customized software” was downloaded in their presence and those certificates were submitted to the banks as proof of import of software, it said.
Deepak Agarwal is the Director of one of the Hong Kong based-companies, which had received around Rs 300 crores worth of such foreign remittances. Ayush Goyal had supplied cash to Vaddi Mahesh and given instructions about remitting funds outside India. This is the third arrest in this case after the arrest of the kingpin Bhimender Kumar Goyal who is presently lodged in Tihar jail.