BHUBANESWAR: The Income Tax department on Wednesday provisionally attached four flats and five luxury vehicles of a woman and her friend who were arrested last month for allegedly defrauding several businessmen.
Infocity police had earlier arrested 38-year-old Hansita Abhilipsa and Anil Kumar Mohanty (49) for allegedly posing as the daughter and son-in-law of Pramod Kumar Mishra, the principal secretary to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and cheating several businessmen on the pretext of providing them his support for expanding their businesses.
Investigations revealed Hansita is the wife of one Saroj Kumar Sahoo. However, Anil was managing all her illegal wealth, said IT department sources.
On Tuesday, the central agency’s officers carried out simultaneous searches at 12 locations linked to Hansita, Saroj and Anil in Odisha, Jharkhand and West Bengal. “During searches, IT department officers found four flats in the names of Hansita, Saroj and Anil. They found three flats in Z1 apartment and another in Patia area.
They traced Saroj and questioned him but he was unable to give satisfactory response regarding the source of money through which they purchased the flats in the prime locality of the capital city,” said sources.
This apart, the IT department has attached five luxury vehicles - Porsche, BMW, Mercedes, Range Rover and Jaguar - belonging to Hansita, Saroj and Anil. “The analysis of the bank accounts of Hansita, Saroj and Anil revealed that they had high value transactions with at least four builders and two contractors,” IT department sources said.
The central agency has, meanwhile, requested police to provide them the hard disk which they had seized from Anil’s possession. Sources said the trio’s wealth rose exponentially in the last three to four years as they allegedly earned money through illegal means.
As per the earlier investigations by Infocity police, Hansita and Anil had approached some mining companies in Odisha to execute their various corporate social responsibility initiatives. They impersonated as family members of PK Mishra to obtain such works.
Meanwhile, the special crime unit of Commissionerate Police is probing the accused persons’ illegal activities and financial transactions.