Ex-Congress MLA arrested by ED for laundering of Rs 8 crore post demonetisation

The MLA, Rajesh Jain, was arrested by the Delhi Police crime branch last month in a post-demonetisation illegal funds case and now Enforcement Directorate (ED) will soon seek his remand from a court to question him at length

Image representational: AFP/ File

New Delhi: A former Congress MLA allegedly routed and laundered black money to the tune of over Rs 8 crore post demonetisation as part of his purported nexus with Delhi-based lawyer Rohit Tandon and others, an ED investigation has found. The MLA, Rajesh Jain, was arrested by the Delhi Police crime branch last month in a post-demonetisation illegal funds case. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) now will soon seek his remand from a court and question him at length, official sources said. He is at present in judicial custody. Investigation revealed that Jain and his son Prateek are proprietors of firms named Jai Jinendra Sales and Srinivas Sales and "during demonetisation these firms received money to the tune of Rs 8.71 crore (Rs 8.56 crore by RTGS and Rs 15 lakh in cash) from firms where the demonetised cash of Rohit Tandon was deposited," an ED report said. This amount, it said, was allegedly transferred and laundered to various other firms in a very "short duration." Agency sources said a detailed questioning of Jain is required to "unravel the entire conspiracy that was chalked out to illegally convert black funds into white in the wake of demonetisation." The agency had also conducted searches at the premises of Jain in Delhi in May as part of its probe against Tandon and few others, whom it had booked and arrested under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). The ED had alleged that Tandon and the other accused in the case "conspired so that demonetised currency would be collected and deposited in various accounts of the firms which have huge cash in hand, and from those accounts demand drafts in fictitious names would be issued." The probe also found, that Jain and Mittal were "instrumental in picking demonetised cash of Tandon between November 14-19 last year from various places at evening and night and the same cash was transported and deposited in various bank accounts of shell companies." The Enforcement Directorate took over the case and registered an FIR under PMLA after taking cognisance of Delhi Police crime branch FIR on alleged fake accounts with deposits worth Rs 34 crore. Last year, the Crime Branch had registered a case of cheating and forgery against lawyer Tandon, Ashish, a bank manager, Kamal Jain, Dinesh Bhola, Raj Kumar Goel, R C Sharma, Yogesh Mittal and Jain. They had allegedly conspired to exchange the demonetized Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes for new notes that were introduced and to earn a huge profit by illegal means. The case was registered to unearth the organised rackets that were exchanging old currency. In a raid conducted on December 10 last year, Rs 13.5 crore was seized from a law firm's office in southeast Delhi's GK-I area, of which Rs 2.6 crore was in new currency released after demonetisation. The raid was carried out at the office of T&T law firm owned by Tandon. Jain, the crime branch had said, was arrested for allegedly conspiring with Tandon to make illegal money transactions by using fake bank accounts worth Rs 50 crore. It was found during the investigation that the forged documents and shell company accounts were used to carry out huge transactions to earn huge profits, they had said.