ED arrests sand mining baron Sekhar Reddy, two associates for money laundering
NEW DELHI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested sand mining baron J Sekhar Reddy and his associates Srinivasulu and Prem Kumar in connection with a money laundering case relating to exchange of demonetised notes to new currency notes to the tune of Rs 34 crores.
The trio was arrested from Chennai under the provisions of Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA).
“J Sekhar Reddy, and his associates Srinivasulu, and Premkumar, were arrested under the provisions of PMLA on 20.03.2017 for laundering money and were produced before the Jurisdictional Magistrate and are remanded to the judicial custody up to 28.03.2017. They are lodged in Puzhal Central Prison,” the ED said in a statement.
The agency is conducting investigation under PMLA against Reddy and others based on the CBI cases registered against them in relation to seizure of about Rs.34 crores of new currency notes from them by the Income tax department.
The main accused Sekhar Reddy was examined under the provisions of PMLA. He has stated that cash seized by the Income Tax department belongs to his SRS Mining Company and admitted that it was unaccounted money. He has evaded the actual source of new currencies but is attributing it to the sand mining business. The seized 177 kg gold bars belong to him and the same was procured through one Prem kumar, the statement further said. .
During investigation, Prem kumar admitted that he supplied gold bars of 1 kg to Reddy. He stated that he used to receive demonetised currencies for procuring gold bars through Srinivasulu, an associate of Reddy. The seized 30 kg of gold bars recovered from his premises also belonged to Reddy.
The third accused Srinivasulu used to receive money from SRS Mining and used it for converting into gold bars through Prem Kumar as per the instructions of Sekhar Reddy. Remaining cash was kept at various premises and the same was earlier recovered and seized by Income Tax department. However, he has not divulged the modus operandi of converting old currencies in to new currencies, the agency said.