New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday arrested a Chartered Accountant in its probe into a Rs 8,000 crore money laundering case. CA Rajesh Agarwal is allegedly connected to RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav’s daughter Misa Bharti.
Agarwal has been arrested under provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and will be produced in court on Tuesday, officials told PTI.
Agarwal was allegedly instrumental in providing accommodation entries to many high-profile people to help launder their funds. These included those being probed by the Income Tax Department in the Rs 1,000 crore benami land deals case allegedly linked to Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad's family, an official said.
Aggarwal had reportedly helped Bharti’s Mishail Packers and Printers through three companies — Shalini Holdings, Adfin Capital Services and Manimala Delhi Properties Pvt Ltd.
The CA, officials said, was also allegedly involved in routing funds for the Jain brothers, Virendra and Surendra, arrested by the ED in a Rs 8,000 crore money laundering racket.
Agarwal would be questioned in detail once the agency gets his custody, an official said.
The ED had last week filed a chargesheet against the Jain brothers. It had also attached agricultural land worth Rs 1.12 crore belonging to them in Bhatti village in the National Capital Region.
With this, the total amount of property attached so far in the case amounts to Rs 65.82 crore.
The ED has identified at least 90 shell firms in this probe case. It has identified 26 of them for allegedly laundering about Rs 62.20 crore.
Shell companies are firms set up with nominal paid-up capital, high reserves and surplus on account of receipt of high share premium, investment in unlisted companies and no dividend income or high amount of cash-in-hand.
The case emerged after the ED filed a criminal complaint in February this year under the PMLA. It was based on a chargesheet filed by the Serious Fraud Investigation Office against certain individuals and firms "for providing accommodation entries by accepting funds from their beneficiaries through mediators and converting the same into share premium transactions in the beneficiary company".
The ED suspects the entire racket to be worth about Rs 8,000 crore of slush funds.
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