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Chhattisgarh liquor scam: ED freezes suspect’s ₹1-cr assets in city
The Enforcement Directorate has frozen assets worth around ?1 crore in Mumbai belonging to a person booked in a money-laundering case related to an alleged liquor scam in Chhattisgarh. The ED is investigating allegations of corruption in the liquor scam from 2019 to 2022.
MUMBAI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has frozen assets worth around ₹1 crore in Mumbai belonging to a person booked in a money-laundering case related to an alleged liquor scam in Chhattisgarh.
The agency froze the alleged unaccounted investments, worth around ₹1 crore, with a share-trading firm in the name of case suspect, Arvind Singh, recently, ED sources said.
“In the searches at Mumbai carried out recently, unaccounted investments worth around ₹1 crore, with a share- trading firm, in the name of Arvind Singh and his wife Pinki Singh, were found and the same have been frozen under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act,” said an ED source.
The ED is conducting investigation into the liquor scam that ran between 2019 and 2022, in which corruption was allegedly perpetrated in multiple ways.
“As a part of the scam, bribes were collected from the distillers for each case of liquor procured from them by the CSMCL, the state body for purchase and sale of liquor. There was sale of unaccounted off-the-books country liquor,” the ED source said.
“In this case, not even ₹1 reached the state eexchequer,and all the sale proceeds were pocketed by the syndicate. The illegal liquor was sold from state-run shops,” said the source.
The agency is also probing allegations that bribes were taken from distillers to allow them to make a cartel and have fixed market share and commission was also extracted from a type of license holders in the foreign liquor segment also.
The agency has so far carried out over three dozen searches across Maharashtra, West Bengal and Delhi, apart from Chhattisgarh, as a part of its probe to trace and attach the proceeds of crime in the case, ED sources said.
The ED detected 53 acres of land at Naya Raipur, estimated to be worth ₹21.60 crore acquired by a case accused, Anwar Dhebar, by using proceeds of crime in the case. During recent search proceedings, the ED had also seized cash worth ₹20 lakh and multiple incriminating documents during searches.
Earlier, the ED had frozen fixed deposits worth ₹27.5 crore belonging to an accused, Trilok Singh Dhillon, and seized jewellery worth ₹28 crore from the house of a country liquor distiller.