Note ban impact: ED attaches Rs 41.65 cr assets of Delhi lawyer, bank manager

The ED on Monday attached assets worth Rs 41.65 crore, deposited as bank demand drafts, as part of its money laundering probe registered post-demonetisation against Delhi-based lawyer Rohit Tandon and suspended Kotak Bank branch manager Ashish Kumar.

The agency issued a provisional attachment order under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), terming the money in the form of demand drafts (DDs) as the “proceeds of crime” of the illegal exchange of old notes of Rs 500 and 1000 by the accused.

The agency said it issued the orders attaching multiple DDs in the name and “attributed” to Tandon and Kumar, which were kept frozen in the custody of the Income Tax department.

The I-T department too is probing this case for charges of alleged black money generation and tax evasion.

Both Tandon and Kumar, along with an alleged entry operator R K Goel, were arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in this case last year and they are at present in judicial custody.

The ED alleged the accused “conspired so that demonetised currency would be collected and deposited in various accounts of the firms (fake) which have huge cash in hand and from those accounts demand drafts in fictitious names would be issued.

“Later these DDs would be cancelled to get the money back into the accounts thus converting the demonetised currency into the monetised currency,” it said.

It added DDs were issued in “fictitious names like Abhilasha Dubey, Dinesh Kumar, Madan Kumar, Madan Saini, Satya Narayan Dagdi, Seema Bai and Sunil Kumar, in active connivance of bank manager Kumar in lieu of huge commission amount in tune of 35 per cent of net converted currency which was also paid in advance to him.”

“During the course of investigation it was revealed that huge cash supplied by Tandon was deposited in various bank accounts of firms owned/handled by?Goel during the period November 15-19 last year post the announcement of the demonetisation.

“Some part of this demonetised currency was also routed through RTGS from other bank accounts of Goel,” the agency said.

ED took on the case and registered an FIR under PMLA laws after taking cognisance of Delhi Police’s crime branch FIR in the said case?of nine alleged fake accounts detected with deposits worth Rs 34 crore.