NEW DELHI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested two Delhi-based importers, both siblings, in the Birfa IT Case of money laundering which involved illegal foreign remittances of over Rs 4,800 crore.
The accused, Mayank Dang and Tushar Dang, were arrested on November 25 under provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) after which they were produced before a special court which remanded them to three-day ED custody. Earlier, Manideep Mago and Sanjay Sethi were arrested as part of this investigation.
The case involves the illegal sending of foreign remittances worth Rs 4,817 crore against bogus and forged invoices for making compensatory payments for under-invoiced imports made from China and Hong Kong.
The ED’s investigation revealed that the Dang brothers had made a well-organised syndicate comprising Indian traders, cash handlers, hawala agents, Chinese manufacturers and suppliers and a dedicated chain of warehouses in several Chinese cities.
Dang family also operated and controlled several foreign entities in collusion and collaboration with the syndicate’s key Chinese member who is known as Mr. King, who after procuring goods from Chinese suppliers and accumulating the same in various warehouses, exported them to the firms owned by Dang family.
A senior officer said that the investigation revealed that the goods imported by Dang Brothers are highly under invoiced and the compensatory payments were remitted abroad through Manideep Mago and Sanjay Sethi. The remittances made by Mago and Sethi were made against bogus invoices raised for the online lease of servers for crypto mining and other things.
However, the investigation revealed that no such services were actually provided and the remittances were made to foreign companies controlled by Mago and his accomplices, from where the payments were made to Chinese Companies engaged in the export of various products to India.
“The probe revealed that the office of Dang brothers and the office or residences of their clients was a regular pick up point of cash by employees of Mago and Sethi,” the officer said.
This cash was layered through various bank accounts operated by the accused persons before being remitted abroad to make payments to Chinese exporters, as per the investigators.
The probe also revealed that the Dang Brothers were destroying evidence by asking their employees and clients to either destroy or change their digital devices post the start of the ED investigation into the case.