New Delhi: Enforcement Directorate has arrested Delhi-based Deepak Nayyar in a money laundering case. He was arrested in a case linked to the alleged laundering of funds worth ₹ 1,146 crore by forging Air Way Bills of reputed companies. This was done in the guise of freight forwarding services on May 5, the ED said in a press statement on Monday.
In Hyderabad, Nayyar, a partner of M/S Seabay International and a resident of Delhi, was arrested and produced before the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) Special Court. He will be staying in ED custody from May 6, to May 20.
ED is investigating the money laundering case. The accused persons laundered ₹ 1,146 crore to Hong Kong by sending foreign outward remittances. He did this from selective branches of State Bank of India and State Bank of Mauritius in Mumbai by using forged Air Way Bills (AWBs) of reputed companies.
During the course of the fund trail investigation, ED discovered a new method of using forged Air Way Bills from reputable companies in the guise of freight forwarding services and fake invoices in the guise of cloud rental services to send bogus foreign outward remittances from multiple bank accounts of multiple shell companies during the fund trail investigation, which resulted in the flight of Rs 1146 crore out of India.
ED further disclosed this information to Hyderabad Police. Under section 66(2) of PML Act 2002 the information was shared and it resulted in the registration of new FIR dated September 9, 2021, thus, recording a fresh PMLA case, the release said.
On probing suspect bank accounts and analysis of IT and GST returns, ED traced Deepak Nayyar. In this probe it was found that Nayyar was the entry operator using the shell companies to launder the money.
These shell companies received laundered money partly from Chinese companies and partly from other suspicious unconnected entities to the tune of ₹ 1,146 crore. As foreign outward remittances and based on fake certificates/ documents the money was sent.
On December 27, 2021 in this case a CA Ravi Kumar was arrested. The suspected mastermind and the proprietors of the shell firms are absconding.
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