New Delhi:
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested alleged hawala dealer Naresh Jain in a money laundering probe case linked to dubious transactions worth over Rs 1 lakh crore made using over 550 shell firms over the last few years, officials said on Wednesday. They said Jain, 62, has been arrested under sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and a local court in Rohini sent him to nine-day ED custody.
The central probe agency, in a statement issued late Wednesday night, said Jain has been arrested in an “ongoing PMLA investigation into his role in money laundering and international hawala transactions”. Hawala denotes to the illegal transfer of funds by skirting banking channels.
A maze of 554 shell or dubious firms, at least 940 suspect bank accounts and fund transfers of over Rs 1.07 lakh crore are under the scanner of the agency in this probe, touted to be one of the biggest hawala and trade-based money-laundering cases of the country. Under the ED’s probe scanner are some “big corporates and a large foreign exchange company”, official sources said.
The ED said, “Jain with his accomplices hatched a criminal conspiracy to forge and fabricate documents in order to cause loss to the government exchequer by indulging in illegal foreign exchange transactions.” “Documents like identity proof, birth and education certificates, voter IDs, PAN cards and signatures were forged and fabricated to incorporate entities, operate bank accounts, facilitate bogus, over-invoiced, under-invoiced import and export transactions and rotation of funds through a web of shell companies to cause undue benefit to the parties involved and loss to the government exchequer,” it said. Jain, the statement added, also “facilitated parking of funds abroad by Indian nationals through his international hawala transaction structure created in India and in various other jurisdictions”.
The agency is probing Jain and his associates as part of two money laundering cases that are based on a Delhi Police economic offences wing (EOW) FIR of 2018 and a criminal complaint of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), 2009. Jain has been arrested by the ED in 2009 in the PMLA case emerging from the NCB case in December, 2009.
The latest arrest of the Delhi-based businessman is in connection with the police EOW FIR filed on charges of cheating, forgery and criminal conspiracy that was registered on the basis of a complaint sent by the ED to it. After the PMLA case was booked on the basis of EOW FIR, the ED had searched Jain and his associates’ premises in Rohini and Vikaspuri areas of the national capital and seized “14 digital keys for operating foreign bank accounts” which were used to perform telegraphic transfers, documents related to operalisation of alleged shell firms, pen drives, hard drives among others, officials said.
The agency, as per officials, is probing as many as 337 foreign bank accounts in countries like Dubai, Hong Kong and Singapore. It was found, the ED officials said, that cash taken in India was “sent to the foreign bank accounts through fictitious tours and travel firms and telegraphic transfers were done subsequently to foreign beneficiaries.” The agency, sources said, has identified about 970 beneficiaries to whom about Rs 18,680 crore alleged dubious funds have been transferred till now.
“It has been revealed that Jain has done hawala operation of about Rs 11,800 crore in 114 foreign bank accounts” “Also, 450 shell companies have been used to rotate funds to the tune of about Rs 96,000 crore for providing accommodation (hawala) entries of estimated Rs 18,680 crore to more than 970 beneficiaries,” the ED said in the statement. Jain has been under the scanner of probe agencies for long and in 2016, the ED had slapped a Rs 1,200-crore notice on him for alleged contravention of the forex law.
According to the agencies, Jain has allegedly laundered and routed hawala funds, allegedly financed contraband networks in the past and this was the reason he was also arrested by the NCB earlier. The serious organised crime agency (SOCA) of the UK also gave a report on Jain and his associates’ alleged money laundering activities to India in 2009 when he was based in Dubai.
Dubai Police had also arrested him with nine others in February, 2007 on charges of similar crimes and he later got bail. Agency officials said Jain fled from Dubai in 2009 and he had two Interpol-issued global arrest warrants against him at that time.
