A special court designated under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) on Wednesday remanded a Hong Kong-based company’s director Deepak Kumar in judicial custody. He was nabbed by the immigration officials last month when he returned from Dubai.
In 2014, his company had allegedly received over ₹100 crore tainted money connected with the foreign remittance scam at the IndusInd bank.
A police complaint was lodged by a bank official in December 2015. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) had then lodged a complaint in connection with the matter in 2017. It informed the court that Kumar became elusive midway during the probe after his statement was recorded in 2017. Besides Kumar, the agency also charge-sheeted diamond trader Vijay Kothari, other persons as well as several firms in 2017.
₹513 crore scam revealed
As per the complaint, three jewellery companies and their directors had conspired to cheat the bank and remitted Indian currency abroad to the tune of over ₹304 crore illegally. To pull off the money laundering, they had submitted forged bank entries and fake invoices to the bank. The agency's probe found that proceeds of crime were to the tune of ₹513 crore and were remitted abroad to Hong Kong-based companies.
The agency informed the court that its probe found that more than ₹100 crore was remitted to Hong Kong based M/s. Star Grace Ltd from accused companies in numerous tranches. Subsequently, a lookout circular was issued by the immigration bureau in 2017 following the ED's request.
