ED arrests Naresh Jain under PMLA for investigation in money laundering, hawala transactions

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested Naresh Jain under the provision of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002 in connection with an ongoing PMLA investigation into his role in money laundering and international hawala transactions.

The ED has secured 9 days custodial remand of Naresh Jain.

The ED had begun investigations under PMLA on the basis of FIR filed by Economic Offences Wing (EOW), and others.

The investigations so far revealed that Jain along with his accomplices allegedly hatched a criminal conspiracy to forge/ fabricate documents in order to cause loss to the government exchequer by indulging in illegal foreign exchange transactions.

Documents like identity proof, birth and education certificates, voter IDs, PAN cards and signatures were forged or fabricated to incorporate entities, operating bank accounts, facilitating bogus/over-invoiced/under-invoiced import and export transactions and rotation of the funds through a web of shell companies to cause undue benefit to the parties involved and loss to the government exchequer, according to a press release by ED.

It also claimed that Jain allegedly facilitated Hawala operation of Rs 11,800 crores approximately in 114 foreign bank account.

It has also been revealed that 450 shell companies have been used to rotate funds to the tune of approximately Rs 96,000 crores for providing accommodation entries of approximately Rs. 18,680 crores to more than 970 beneficiaries.

He was brought to the ED office for custodial interrogation on Wednesday.

Further investigation is underway.

-ANI

Also Read: ED closely monitoring Kerala gold smuggling case, may join probe to unearth money transactions