Indore: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Saturday provisionally attached 28 immovable assets valued at more than Rs 70 crore in the sensational liquor fake challan “scam”, which caused huge revenue loss to the Madhya Pradesh government.
The attached properties include prime land parcels and residential flats located in Indore, Mandsaur and Khargone belonging to several liquor contractors involved in the fraud.
The ED initiated a money-laundering investigation on the basis of an FIR registered by Raoji Bazar Police Station, Indore, against multiple country-made and foreign liquor contractors.
The accused devised a systematic modus operandi to cheat the state exchequer; contractors would prepare treasury challans for small amounts, and the column “Rupees in Words” was deliberately left blank. After depositing the lesser amount in the bank, they later tampered with the figure column and filled inflated amount in words on the bank’s copy.
These forged challans showing higher payments were then submitted to country liquor warehouses or the District Excise Office to obtain No-Objection Certificates (NOCs). This enabled them to lift substantially larger quantities of liquor stock while paying only a fraction of the actual duty, basic licence fee and minimum guarantee amount.
During probe under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), the ED has so far established that prime accused Raju Dashwant, Ansh Trivedi and other liquor contractors jointly generated, possessed, concealed and projected proceeds of crime exceeding Rs 49 crore through scheduled offences of forgery, cheating and criminal conspiracy.
Both Raju Dashwant and Ansh Trivedi, earlier arrested by the ED, are presently in judicial custody.
A senior ED official said the provisional attachment order was issued on Saturday under the provisions of the PMLA to prevent further dissipation of tainted assets.
The agency has already shared the order with the Adjudicating Authority for confirmation.
Further investigation into the money trail and identification of additional proceeds of crime is in progress. More arrests and attachments are likely in the coming days.
(IANS)
