New Delhi: A Delhi court today allowed a plea of Enforcement Directorate (ED) seeking transit remand of an accused arrested here in connection with its probe into alleged multi-crore hawala and money laundering in betting in IPL and international cricket matches.
Mukesh Kumar, who was arrested here yesterday by the ED, was produced before Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (ACMM) Ajay Garg where the agency alleged that he was involved in sending money in and outside the country through hawala transactions.
The court allowed the agency's plea for transit remand of the accused and directed it to produce him before concerned court in Ahmedabad in Gujarat on or before May 25.
"As per the records, allegations against the arrestee are grievous in nature, co-accused are already in custody of ED. In these circumstances, considering the gravity of offence, I hereby grant transit remand of arrestee Mukesh Kumar for two days from today i.e. with effect from May 23 to May 25 with directions to IO Sanjay Kumar to produce the arrestee before the concerned court of Principal and Sessions Judge, Ahmedabad Rural on or before May 25," the ACMM said.
During the hearing, ED's special public prosecutor N K Matta claimed in the court that hawala racket was going on and a complaint was lodged on the basis of specific intelligence information regarding operation of such racket in the online international cricket betting.
He said that online betting was going on through UK-based website Betfair.com and initial investigation in the case was conducted by ED under the Foreign Exchange Management Act.
Matta also said that Kumar was arrested on the basis of interrogation of other arrested co-accused and questioning of Kumar was required to ascertain the money trail.
Advocate R K Wadhwa, who appeared for Kumar, opposed ED's plea saying the recovery of material has already been effected and no custodial interrogation was necessary.
ED had yesterday conducted searches in multiple cities, including Delhi, Mumbai and Jaipur in connection with the case and had arrested Kumar.
The agency had also searched the premises of suspected bookies in Jaipur and Thane as they have been found to be using the Hawala route to transfer bettings funds abroad and obtain similar money into India from people betting in IPL matches.
