The Enforcement Directorate is conducting raids at multiple locations in the national capital region in connection with a money laundering probe against Delhi minister Satyendar Jain and his associates, officials said Friday morning.
At least 10 residential and business locations are being covered by the officials of the federal probe agency as part of the searches. The premises linked to the promoters of a prominent school-running business group are also understood to have been covered.
Jain, 57, was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate on May 30 under the criminal sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and is in judicial custody at present. A decision on his bail plea has been reserved by a Delhi court.
The agency had claimed to have seized ”unexplained” cash worth Rs 2.85 crore and 133 gold coins after similar raids were conducted against Jain’s family and others after his arrest.
Jain, a minister without portfolio in the Kejriwal government, is being probed by the agency under the PMLA on charges of alleged hawala dealings.
In April, the ED had attached assets worth Rs 4.81 crore of Jain’s family and companies ”beneficially owned and controlled” by him as part of the probe. Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief Arvind Kejriwal had defended Jain as a ”hardcore honest patriot” who was being ”framed in a false case”.
The chief had said he hoped Jain would come out clean after the ED probe. The ED had said a provisional order was issued under the PMLA to ”attach immovable properties worth Rs 4.81 crore belonging to Akinchan Developers Pvt. Ltd., Indo Metal Impex Pvt Ltd, Paryas Infosolutions Pvt. Ltd., Manglayatan Projects Pvt. Ltd., J.J. Ideal Estate Pvt. Ltd., Swati Jain, wife of Vaibhav Jain, Sushila Jain, wife of Ajit Prasad Jain, and Indu Jain, wife of Sunil Jain.”
The probe found that ”during the period 2015-16, when Satyendar Kumar Jain was a public servant, the companies beneficially owned and controlled by him received accommodation entries to the tune of Rs 4.81 crore from shell (paper) companies against cash transferred to Kolkata-based entry operators through the hawala route”.
”These amounts were utilised for direct purchase of land or for repayment of loan taken for the purchase of agricultural land in and around Delhi,” the ED said. The persons named in the attachment order are associates and family members of Jain, officials had said.
The money laundering case against the AAP minister stems from an August 2017 FIR filed by the CBI against him and others on charges of alleged possession of disproportionate assets (DA). A charge sheet was filed by the CBI in December, 2018 stating that the alleged DA was to the tune of Rs 1.47 crore, about 217 per cent more than his known sources of income, during 2015-17.
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