In its fresh bid to expedite the money laundering case against alleged black money stasher Hasan Ali Khan, the Enforcement Directorate on Tuesday conducted searches at nine locations in six cities on the premises of the Pune-based stud farm owner and his accomplices.
The agency, which booked Khan and his associates under criminal charges of money laundering in 2011, searched different locations in Mumbai, Pune, Gurgaon and Kolkata.
A team of 30 officials were involved in the search operation aimed to revive the case and gather additional evidences so that a trial against him in a Mumbai court could proceed and is brought to its logical conclusion, sources said.
ED Director Karnal Singh recently held a high-level meeting to discuss the case after which the Mumbai zonal office of the agency was asked to lead the operation.
The move comes after the agency got fresh leads in the case, especially information from foreign jurisdictions.
Khan, who was jailed for a long time under the provisions of the Prevention of Money laundering Act (PMlA), was released on bail in August last year after which he has been living at his residences in Mumbai and Pune.
The case, also being probed by the Income Tax department and few State police units for various IPC offences, is also important for the agencies to crack as Khan is the only entity named as an individual in the Terms of Reference of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) on black money that was notified by the Centre last year.
Khan came under the scrutiny from multiple agencies including the Economic Offences Wing of the Mumbai Police in 2007 which had been probing him and his associates for charges of money laundering, income tax evasion and violations of the Passport Act.
He was slapped with an Income Tax notice demanding taxes over Rs50,000 crore and it was claimed to be the biggest individual case of black money stashed abroad and also that of the highest tax evasion by an individual in the country.
While the I-T department raised a tax arrear demand of Rs50,345.73 crore on Khan, ED registered a case under the Prevention of Money laundering Act (PMlA) for allegedly stashing away USD eight billion of unaccounted money in foreign banks.