Mumbai: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested Rajesh Brijlal Batreja under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act in connection with an Income Tax refund fraud case amounting to Rs 263 crore.
The ED team arrested Batreja on Friday and produced him before the court, which granted his custody to the ED until May 22.
According to the ED investigation, Rajesh Batreja played a key role in diverting Rs 55.50 crore of Proceeds of Crime (PoC) outside India and round-tripping part of these funds into two Indian entities under the guise of investment from Dubai.
Last week, the ED team conducted search operations at the premises of two Indian companies linked with Batreja and seized digital devices, which are currently under scrutiny.
Earlier, the ED arrested Tanaji Mandal Adhikari, an income tax inspector, businessman Bhushan Patil, and Rajesh Shetty in this case. They are currently in judicial custody.
The agency had already filed a prosecution complaint (PC) against these three accused last year. In the prosecution complaint, the ED also allegedly mentioned the suspected involvement of GST inspector turned Bollywood actress Kirti Verma. The ED also attached immovable and movable properties worth Rs 168 crore.
In the Income Tax refund fraud case, Tanaji Adhikari, an income tax inspector handling the refund of tax deduction at source (TDS) claims, was found to have used the login IDs and passwords of his senior officers in the I-T department to clear bogus TDS refund claims into the account of another arrested accused, Bhushan Patil's company from November 2019 to November 2020, Adhikari cleared 12 fraudulent TDS refunds amounting to Rs 264 crore. The ED alleged that the entire proceeds of crime were routed to Patil's firm's bank account and then diverted to other accounts.
Arrested accused Rajesh Batreja was also found involved in money laundering and fund diversion, and he was identified as a close associate of the main accused, Adhikari.
The ED investigation revealed that Batreja assisted Tanaji Mandal Adhikari in diverting Rs 55.50 crore into three shell companies to convert it into cash for sending it outside India through hawala channels. Batreja further aided Adhikari in concealing these proceeds of crime and later in the placement and layering of the siphoned-off funds by incorporating firms in Dubai to project the money as untainted.
The investigation also revealed that Batreja invested part of the siphoned-off funds in two Indian companies based in Mumbai and Gurugram under the guise of share investment via cross-border remittances.
