Mumbai: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday raided 11 locations linked to Hero MotoCorp Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Pawan Munjal in connection with a money laundering probe.
The searches were carried out in Delhi and Gurugram in accordance with provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.
Hero Motocorp raided by other agencies also
Hero MotoCorp confirmed that the ED raided Munjal’s residence and other premises linked to him in Gurugram. “Officials from the Enforcement Directorate today visited two of our offices in Delhi and Gurugram and the residence of our Executive Chairman Pawan Munjal. We continue to extend all cooperation to the agency,” the company said.
The premier anti-money laundering investigation agency raided Munjal's residence after taking cognisance of a Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) case of undeclared foreign currency.
Munjal was reportedly deplaned at the Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi, in August 2018, after the Central Industrial Security Force found a person identified as Amit Bali was found to be carrying alleged foreign currency equivalent to Rs81 lakh in his cabin luggage. Bali had told Customs department officials that he was carrying the forex on behalf of SEMPL and that it belonged to Munjal.
A probe had revealed that SEMPL had a yearly turnover of Rs200 crore and had business of Rs785.96 crore from Hero between 2014 and 2018 without any written contract.
ED said various financial documents were seized and taken for further investigation along with electronic and digital data. However, Hero MotoCorp said these were routine searches.
The income-tax department and the Ministry of Corporate Affairs are also probing the accounts of Hero MotoCorp.
The I-T department had earlier conducted searches across 25 premises, including the offices and residence of Munjal, as part of an investigation into alleged tax evasion. The Central Board of Direct Taxes had alleged illegal business expenses of more than Rs800 crore. “Expenditure aggregating to more than Rs800 crore has been booked in the guise of purchase of services from a specific event management entity,” it said.
The Ministry of Corporate Affairs had also ordered an investigation against Hero MotoCorp over alleged breaches of corporate governance norms. The probe initiated under ‘public interest’ will focus on the true ownership of certain linked companies. MCA is also probing the affairs of, which is suspected to be a ‘linked entity’ of Hero MotoCorp.
