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Jharkhand liquor trader Jigendra Tiwari remanded 8-day ED custody by PMLA court
In their first crackdown against an alleged liquor scam in Jharkhand, the ED on Thursday arrested Tiwari, an alleged middleman in connection with a liquor scam case, on money laundering charges
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday told the special PMLA court, Jharkhand, that liquor traders Jogendra Tiwari and Prem Prakash monopolised the liquor business in the state with help from ‘highly-placed bureaucrats and politicians’.
In their first crackdown against an alleged liquor scam in Jharkhand, the ED on Thursday arrested Tiwari, an alleged middleman in connection with a liquor scam case, on money laundering charges.
The probe agency produced him before the special PMLA court on Friday and sought a 14-day remand for further questioning against which the court of PK Sharma granted an 8-day remand to the agency.
Prakash, another businessman, is already in jail on money laundering charges in connection with separate probes related to illegal mining and land scams in the state.
The development comes around two months after the agency conducted searches at around three dozen locations on August 23 and August 24, including a dozen related to Tiwari, a businessman from Mihijam in the Jamtara district.
During its raids, the federal agency had covered about 34-40 premises in Ranchi, Dumka, Deoghar and Godda districts.
The raids were conducted based on an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR) recorded by the agency on March 31, 2022, treating four first information reports (FIR) registered with different police stations in the state related to illegal liquor sale, illegal sand mining and fraudulent sale of land as a predicate offence. Later 14 more FIRs have been merged as predicate offences in the said ECIR.
Seeking Tiwari’s remand, the ED informed the court that the records seized during the searches show that he was running a sand and liquor business in the name of other individuals who were just name lenders or were his employees and associates and the actual control of these businesses was with Tiwari.
“Through the abovementioned illegal activities which in some cases culminated into schedule offence in certain criminal cases, Jogendra Tiwari has amassed a huge amount of cash and the said cash was integrated by depositing them in bank accounts of his entities/individuals under control and the same was subsequently unutilised for paying the license fee for the wholesale sale of liquor through his entities in the year 2021 and acquired huge amount from the said businesses,” the agency told the court on Friday.
“Investigation indicates that Jogendra Tiwari and Prem Prakash both monopolised the liquor business during the period 2021 under the patronage of some highly paced bureaucrats and politicians,” the probe agency added, without revealing their names.
The ED further said that during the course of searches and recording of statements of several persons connected to Tiwari, it was found that he opened bank accounts in the name of his employees but were being operated by Tiwari himself.
Investigation further revealed that entities were formed in the names of salesman of the wine shops of Tiwari and these salesman were made namesake partners.
These firms were also allotted licenses for wholesale sale of liquor in the state of Jharkhand in the year 2021, the agency said.
To substantiate their case, the ED has relied on digital evidence, including various recovered emails wherein it was found that many files/records pertaining to various individuals and firms engaged in the businesses of sand and liquor were being shared from the email under the control of Tiwari with CA Ajay Keshri.
It reflects that such businesses are being controlled by none other than Tiwari, the agency said.
