The Enforcement Directorate seized cash and jewellry worth Rs 25.81 crores following raids carried out across 13 locations in Maharashtra in connection to a money laundering case, informed officials on Saturday.
During the search operation conducted on Thursday (July 17), ED seized a large number of incriminating documents along with 39.33 kg of gold and diamond jewellry worth Rs 24.7 crore and a cash amount of Rs 1.11 crore. The national agency was investigating a loan fraud committed by Rajmal Lakhichand Jewelers Pvt Ltd, R L Gold Pvt Ltd, Manraj Jewelers Pvt Ltd and their promoters including Ishwarlal Shankarlal Jain Lalwani, Manish Ishwarlal Jain Lalwani, Pushpa Devi and Neetika Manish Jain.
ED initiated an investigation on the basis of three FIRs filed by CBI for offenses of criminal conspiracy, cheating, forgery and criminal misconduct. As per the banks, the accused persons had intentionally defaulted on their loans from the State Bank of India, causing wrongful loss to the tune of Rs 352.49 Crore (plus interest thereon).
It was also revealed that the promoters of the three accused companies had colluded together and engaged in fictitious transactions, and fabrication of account books.
Bogus sale and purchase of transactions had been shown in account books with the main holding company i.e. Rajmal Lakhichand Jalgaon Partnership Firm. Large amount of stock in trade was found to be completely missing. Against a declared stock of more than 1284 KG of jewellery, ED could trace only around 40 KG of jewellery. Thus, loans taken against this declared stock were siphoned off by showing bogus purchases for non-existent jewellery.
The Promoters failed to produce any supportive document to prove the genuine utilisation of the loans by the three accused. They admitted that purposefully, no books of accounts, ledgers, stock registers, invoices or any supportive documents were maintained for the period FY 2003-2014 (loan disbursement period).
Analysis of the books also revealed that the stock in the 3 accused companies had been brought to zero in spite of being hypothecated to SBI. Fictitious entities with relatives as dummy directors were created to apply for new loans fraudulently. Suspicious documents have also been recovered from the mobile phones which indicate FDI proposal of 50 million euro from a Luxemberg-based entity in the real estate company controlled by Manish Jain.
Details of 60 properties belonging to Rajmal Lakhichand Group have been gathered during the search proceedings valued at more than Rs 50 Crore, apart from 2 unnamed properties beneficially owned by Rajmal Lakhichand Manish Jain located in areas of Jamner, Jalgaon, and surrounding areas.
ALSO READ | NIA raids Jammu and Kashmir’s Bathindi, Shopian | WATCH
ALSO READ | NIA carries out raids in five states in PFI conspiracy case; seizes incriminating materials
