The jewellers raided by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) earlier this week had allegedly laundered ₹ 95 crore of the proceeds from the alleged ₹ 645-crore IDFC First Bank fraud by routing the money through shell entities and showing it as gold purchases, the agency said on Friday.
From here, the funds were transferred to jewellers, who layered the proceeds by showing it as genuine business transactions – sometimes as gold purchases – and ultimately routed the money to accused IAS officers and other government officials named in the chargesheets after deducting their commissions. The ED’s money-laundering investigation was initiated on the basis of an FIR registered by Haryana police. The agency has also attached, seized or frozen movable and immovable assets worth ₹ 211 crore and filed a prosecution complaint against 14 accused persons before the PMLA Special Court in Panchkula.
The money allegedly embezzled from the accounts of Haryana government, Chandigarh municipal corporation (MC) and Chandigarh Renewal Energy and Science & Technology Promotion Society (CREST) was first routed to shell companies managed by alleged mastermind Ribhav Rishi, according to the agency.
Earlier, the ED had arrested four accused persons in connection with the alleged money-laundering offence.
Two FIRs were then registered in Haryana and two in Chandigarh were taken over by the Central Bureau of Investigation.
