The Enforcement Directorate on Saturday conducted fresh raids at the premises of Punjab's Minister of Industries, Sanjeev Arora, in Delhi, Gurgaon and Chandigarh in connection with an alleged foreign exchange violation involving bogus exports worth Rs 157.12 crore.
Officials from the probe agency conducted searches at five locations, including the AAP leader's official residence in Chandigarh and offices of his real estate company, Hampton Sky Realty Ltd in Gurgaon.
The action was taken under the criminal sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), the officials said.
According to the case, Arora is accused of laundering money through his company in fake GST purchases of mobile phones worth more than Rs 100 crores and subsequent exports to round-trip illegitimate funds from Dubai to India.
The ED has reportedly obtained multiple fake GST purchase bills from non-existent firms in Delhi, which were allegedly used to claim fake Input Tax Credit (ITC), GST refunds on export credit and also duty drawback, causing loss to the exchequer.
In April, the ED had raided Arora and entities linked to him under the civil provisions of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA).
Arora had then said that he would fully cooperate with the probe agencies and that he was confident that the truth will prevail.
The MLA from Ludhiana West was raided by the ED in 2024, when he was Rajya Sabha MP, in a money laundering case linked to alleged misuse of industrial land for residential projects.
Reacting to the raids, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann wrote on X, "once again the BJP’s ED had come to Sanjeev Arora’s house ... This is the land of Bhagat Singh, who never bowed b (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi’s tactics. The end of this immoral alliance between the ED and BJP will begin from Punjab itself."
AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal said, "as soon as the Bengal elections ended, Modi started conducting daily ED raids in Punjab. A raid was carried out at Ashok Mittal’s place, and the very next day he was brought into the BJP. This means the purpose of the ED raid wasn’t to uncover stolen money. It was solely to break Mittal and get him to join the BJP. Just a few days ago, a raid was also conducted at Sanjeev Arora’s place. When he didn’t join the BJP, another raid was carried out at his premises."
Sources said that in another related development the ED has provisionally attached multiple bank accounts and immovable properties of Hampton Sky Realty Limited, as well as demat accounts and mutual fund holdings of Kavya Arora.
According to the provisional attachment order, the company allegedly generated fake purchase invoices through a network of shell entities to project bogus sales and exports.
It is alleged that against the total claimed exports of Rs 157.12 crore, transactions worth Rs 102.50 crore were routed through only two UAE-based entities M/s Fortbel Telecom FZCO and M/s Dragon Global FZCO.
It is also claimed that Fortbel Telecom FZCO is a related or associated entity of M/s Fortbell Gadgets Private Limited, allegedly beneficially owned by Hemant Sood and Chander Sekhar, said sources.
Sources said that on April 19 the attachment orders were issued under Section 37(3) of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), 1999, read with Section 132(9B) of the Income Tax Act, direct freezing of the assets for 180 days to secure the interest of revenue and facilitate further investigation.
This ED action follows search and seizure operations which it carried out on April 17 at the premises of Hampton Sky Realty Limited in Udyog Vihar of Gurugram which is the offices of its major shareholder M/s Findoc Finvest Private Limited and locations linked to Sanjeev Arora, Kavya Arora, Hemant Sood and Chander Sekhar.
Sources further added that the agency is examining the financial trail and transactions involving associated firms and individuals as part of its ongoing investigation into the alleged foreign exchange violations.
