HYDERABAD: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) arrested V Hima Bindu, MD of VMC Systems Limited (VMCSL), a telecom equipment manufacturer, under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) for reportedly indulging in money laundering and causing a loss of about Rs 3,316 crore to a consortium of public sector banks.
The ED carried out searches on July 20 at the residences of Bindu, her brother V Satish and another person V Madhavi and recovered allegedly incriminating documents and digital data in the form of 40 external hard discs, six mobile phones and two laptops.
The ED arrested Bindu after she kept ignoring the summons by the ED, didn’t supply the documents of her companies and transactions and blatantly lied about foreign transactions. She was arrested under Section 19 of the PMLA and was produced before the PMLA special court, which remanded her to judicial custody till August 18.
The ED carried out an investigation based on the FIR filed by the CBI. The ED, in a press release, said that the forensic audit had revealed that VMCSL circulated loans to various related entities to inflate its books of accounts. Forensic audit also revealed that PISL, a related entity, was given a three per cent commission by VMCSL for all receipts from BSNL without any specific role of PISL (where Satish is the MD) in BSNL tenders.