KOLKATA: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Saturday froze eight bank accounts where money, suspected to be proceeds of crime of alleged school recruitment scam, was deposited. The central agency has come across several shell companies, set up to siphon off several crores of rupees allegedly procured from the school teachers' job aspirants.
“The bank accounts were fictitious and opened in the name of several companies and associates of former minister of West Bengal cabinet and suspended Trinamool Congress heavyweight Partha Chatterjee and his close aide Arpita Mukherjee. We are yet to ascertain the total volume of money deposited in the accounts at present,’’ said an ED official.
The central agency came to know about a real estate company and an entertainment agency, which were used to park the money, suspected to be proceeds of crime of the recruitment scam. Chatterjee and Arpita were arrested last week in connection with the alleged recruitment scam.
During the course of interrogation, Arpita, from whose south Kolkata apartment cash Rs 21.9 crore was recovered, said the rooms in which the money was stashed used to be locked and keys used to be with Chatterjee’s men.
“His (Chatterjee’s) men used to come, keep the money and leave after locking the rooms of my apartments. I had no access to those rooms,” Arpita reportedly told the sleuths of the central agency which is probing into the money trail in the alleged scam.
Two days after recovering the huge amount of currency notes from Arpita’s south Kolkata flat, the investigative agency officials carried out a search in her Belgharia apartment in North 24-Parganas and recovered cash of Rs 27.9 crore and jewellery and gold weighing 6 kg.
“Other than cash and jewellery, we found at least 20 immovable properties in the name of Chatterjee, Arpita and pseudo names. We are expecting to unearth more assets which were made illegally,” said another ED official.
A team of ED officials arrived at Arpita’s south Kolkata apartment on Saturday and carried out a search again. Pranab Bhattacharya, the driver of Arpita, said the model actor used to ride a Mini Cooper car. “But I have not seen the car for the past three months,” he said.
Bhattacharya confirmed that Arpita used to visit Chatterjee’s Behala office and Naktala residence frequently. “Chatterjee, too, used to visit Arpita’s apartment occasionally. In the south Kolkata housing complex, she has three apartments,’’ he added.
The driver, however, said he never saw that bags stashed with money were kept in the car when he was on the wheels. “Other than in Kolkata, Arpita also went to Bolpur and Santiniketan with Chatterjee and her family members,” Bhattacharya said. The central investigative agency has found a number of properties at Santiniketan and Bolpur in Bengal in the name of Chatterjee and Arpita.