Mumbai: CA arrested by ED in Rs 1,100 cr money laundering case

Mumbai: CA arrested by ED in Rs 1,100 cr money laundering case

Somendra SharmaUpdated: Friday, December 03, 2021, 11:01 PM IST
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Enforcement Directorate (ED) | File Image

Mumbai: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested Ravi Kumar, a chartered accountant (CA), in a case of laundering of Rs 1,100 crore by sending to Hong Kong and China foreign outward remittances from select bank branches of the SBI and another bank at Mumbai by using forged air way bills (AWBs) and fabricated Cloud CCTV storage rental charges. Kumar, who has an offence registered at Hyderabad, was produced before the PMLA Special Court and has been remanded in five days’ ED custody.

According to the agency, the ED has been conducting money laundering investigations against several Chinese controlled companies, namely M/s Linkyun Technology Private Limited and M/s Dokypay Technology Private Limited, who had allegedly cheated lakhs of gullible online users through illegal gaming, dating and streaming applications and collected thousands of crores of rupees via online payment gateways and then laundered the money using various modus-operandi, including hawala payments to hair merchants, purchase of crypto-currency, illegal remittances to Singapore etc.

‘‘During the course of the ongoing fund trail investigation, ED came across the new modus operandi of using fake AWBs and fake Cloud rental bills to send bogus foreign outward remittances from multiple bank accounts. It was disclosed to the Hyderabad police and based on the information of the ED, a new FIR was registered by police on September 9, this year. Based on this FIR, the ED had initiated a fresh investigation under PMLA,’’ the agency claimed in a statement.

‘‘Money laundering investigation by ED has revealed that Ravi Kumar, without doing any due diligence and without verification of genuineness of import documents, had issued 621 bogus Form 15CB certificates and blindly signed the balance sheets of shell companies/firms, which enabled them to launder the proceeds of crime to Hong Kong, SAR, China. Despite being a CA, he failed in his statutory duty and assisted the accused persons and charged Rs 1,500 per bogus certificate and thus got involved in the offence of money laundering for personal gain. The proprietors of the shell firms are absconding,’’ the statement added.

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