Mumbai: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has submitted a prosecution complaint (PC) against three accused – Siraj Memon, Nagani Akram Mohammad Shafi and Vasim Valimohmad Bhesaniya – in the ongoing Malegaon money laundering case. The PMLA court is expected to take cognizance of the prosecution complaint soon.
In the said case, the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) also conducted an investigation and filed a chargesheet on January 9 in the Nashik court. According to the ATS chargesheet, the accused amassed approximately Rs 317.49 crore through 23 bank accounts by leveraging cyber fraud and online gaming apps. Of this amount, nearly Rs 316.70 crore was withdrawn and transferred.
The ED’s PC outlines an elaborate, large-scale money laundering racket, run by a sophisticated intricate pan-India network of cyber criminals, involved in extorting money from the public through various types of online frauds such as investment fraud, digital arrest, online gaming, online betting, illegal forex trading and different other types of cybercrimes and laundering the crime money into untainted as procured from legal sources, by way of transactions made through a maze of fake accounts, and several other methodologies, all of which are being investigated under the PMLA.
The ED investigation pinpointed 14 accounts in NAMCO Bank and five in Bank of Maharashtra, opened by the main accused, Seraj Ahmed, which were used to launder funds worth hundreds of crores from illegal activities like online gaming and betting. Further, about Rs 14.84 crore was withdrawn from NAMCO Bank accounts linked to Dhanraj Agro and Gangasagar Enterprise, under the guise of Agriculture Produce Marketing Committees (APMC) transactions. Of this, Rs 13.26 crore was moved from Malegaon to Mumbai through M/s KD Angadia using hawala channels.
The remaining funds in these 14 accounts were redistributed to other accounts, including those of six shell companies in Ahmedabad. Scrutiny of the bank accounts of the said six entities revealed that they have received Rs 365.47 crore in their bank accounts in five months. Investigation also revealed that accused Nagani Akram Mohammad Shafi a.k.a Monu and Vasim Vali Momad Bhesaniya a.k.a Sanju were involved in withdrawal of the cash amounting to Rs 198 crore(in several tranches) from the bank accounts of the said six entities in less than four months and the cash withdrawn which was handed over by them to various hawala operators, based at Ahmedabad.
The investigation further revealed that a part of the proceeds of crime was diverted abroad in the form of foreign outward remittances in the guise of bogus software import by two shell entities namely M/s Ferbion International & M/s Blaze International.
ED PC says that a syndicate is being run by the aforementioned accused persons & their other associates, who used the Identity Documents and SIM Cards of several unrelated persons, to establish shell entities in the name of the said persons and later to open bank accounts in the name of the said newly established shell entities. The said bank accounts are used for placement of funds amounting to hundreds of Crores of Rupees, that are generated from various illegal business activities and thereafter these funds are layered through another sets of bank accounts opened in the name of shell entities, until they are withdrawn either in cash or are integrated with Nation’s economy as legitimate business transactions. Some of the said funds are also remitted outside the country in the guise of bogus software import and consultancy by the shell entities.
