Two liquor businessmen from Jharkhand were taken into custody by the Chhattisgarh Economic Offences Wing (EOW) in connection with a money laundering case linked to the alleged liquor case in the state, officials said on Thursday.
The accused, Atul Singh and Mukesh Manchanda who are directors of foreign liquor licensee firm Om Sai Beverages were lodged in a Jharkhand jail in a similar case there.
They will be brought to Raipur on a production warrant obtained from a Jharkhand court and will be produced before the special Anti-Corruption Bureau/Economic Offences Wing (ACB/EOW) court on Friday, an official said.
Singh and Manchanda are accused of collecting commission on liquor trade as part of the money laundering case.
According to the Enforcement Directorate (ED), which is probing the money laundering angle, the alleged case was run between 2019 and 2022 during the Congress government led by Bhupesh Baghel.
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The ED has claimed that it caused a massive loss to the exchequer while a liquor syndicate pocketed more than ₹2,100 crore.
{{/usCountry}}The ED has claimed that it caused a massive loss to the exchequer while a liquor syndicate pocketed more than ₹2,100 crore.
{{/usCountry}}In January, the ED arrested former minister and Congress leader Kawasi Lakhma, businessman Anwar Dhebar, former IAS officer Anil Tuteja, Indian Telecom Service (ITS) officer Arunpati Tripathi and others in the case.
The EOW registered a first information case (FIR) in January last year, about a month after the BJP defeated the Congress in the 2023 assembly polls. The FIR named 70 individuals and companies, including Lakhma and former chief secretary Vivek Dhand.