ED seizes Rs 1 crore in assets, including cash and jewelry, during raids in Mumbai, Thane, and Varanasi in a money laundering probe | Representative Image
Mumbai: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) in Mumbai recently conducted the searches at eleven locations across Mumbai, Thane, and Varanasi under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002, as part of an ongoing probe into an illegal foreign remittance case.
During these operations, the ED confiscated movable assets, including cash and jewelry worth approximately Rs 1 crore. In addition, “incriminating” documents related to immovable property transactions and several digital devices were also recovered and seized, the financial probe agency stated on Thursday.
The ED investigation stems from an FIR registered by the Thane Police in October 2023 against Jitendra Pandey and his other associates. They were accused of allegedly facilitating illegal remittances exceeding Rs 10,000 crore to entities in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Thailand under the guise of freight charges, using a web of bank accounts opened in the name of shell entities.
In 2023, Jitendra Pandey and his associates were apprehended by the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Thane Police during a cyber fraud investigation. The case was sparked by a hack into the software of payment gateway company Safex Payout, leading to an alleged fraud of Rs 25 crore. The company’s legal advisor lodged a complaint with the Shrinagar police station, which initiated the inquiry. The EOW’s investigation uncovered that Rs 1.39 crore was illicitly transferred into an account of a Navi Mumbai-based firm. Further probes revealed five partnership firms were fraudulently registered at one address using fake documents and names linked to Jitendra Pandey. These entities facilitated illegal remittances by layering funds through their bank accounts.
In the money laundering probe, ED found that the accused persons set up 98 dummy partnership firms and 12 private limited companies and opened about 269 bank accounts in their name to execute such illicit financial transactions through them.
The search operations unveiled a network of RTGS entry operators who used to arrange the RTGS entries in bank accounts of partnership firms which are layered through bank accounts of these shell entities in order to conceal the origin of the funds, the agency stated on Thursday.
Eventually, the funds were finally placed in the bank accounts of 12 private limited companies purportedly in the business of freight and logistics and remitted abroad in guise of freight charges, the agency added.
The ED further stated that the involvement of several chartered accountants had surfaced during the investigation. These professionals allegedly assisted the accused in incorporating companies, ensuring regulatory compliance, and filing documents such as ROC filings and Form 15CA.
