By TIOL News Service
NEW DELHI, JULY 13, 2016: EVEN as the Special Investigation Team (SIT) on Black Money gets busy with the review of the mega cases and the CBDT leaving no stone unturned to make a big success out of its Income Declaration Scheme, its sister Board, the CBEC, also appears to be lending a helping hand by detecting mega export/import frauds resulting in laundering of black money as import remittances. The CBEC sources told TIOL that the Delhi ICD Custom officers have busted the racket; nabbed the kingpin and so far detected illegal remittances to the tune of Rs 220 Crore through some of the banks in Delhi.
How was the racket unearthed? It began with some documents received from a couple of banks with respect to verification of Bills of Entry (BEs) submitted by importers for remittances to exporters against the goods received. Given the fact that the Delhi ICD handles as huge a number of BEs as 1.5 lakh annually, such verification may have become a ritualistic activity but for the alert eyeballs of the SIIB officers led by Joint Commissioner Nilank Kumar, which found something fishy about them. Thus began an intensive probe, which turned out to be eye-popping with the detection of additional information at every stage of investigation.
At the first instance, the BE numbers were found to be genuine and also duly registered against the name of an MNC with the Port but other details were different from what were available in the Customs database ( EDI). The Banks were informed accordingly but a well-planned investigation rolled out. Two teams of officers proceeded to conduct searches at the premises of importer M/s Neelkanth Enterprises and the Proprietor. Predictably enough, the importer did not exist at the given address, interestingly, occupied by a scrap dealer. A little grilling of the scrap dealer did the trick and the Customs recovered two brass stamps; one each of ICICI Bank and the Central Bank of India, several rubber stamps of various firms/companies, documents showing cash deposit of lakhs of rupees and one lap top. Further intelligence gathered on the spot revealed that one Sumit Aggarwal was the mastermind behind the racket. His residential address was also gathered on the spot and another team was immediately sent to his residential premises situated in Rohini, New Delhi. The alleged mastermind joined the probe and admitted his illegal forex transactions, owned the documents recovered during searches, revealed names of some of his associates/employees and witnessed recovery of data from two laptops.
Based on the intelligence gathered, several teams were dispatched to search as many as 29 places, including two in Ludhiana - out of which 16 premises were found non-existent; in case of one premise, it was seen that the address had been wrongly used; six premises were in their control as tenant for a few months in the past and had been vacated long back and actual searches were conducted at six premises which produced some incriminating documents. It was noticed from the Bank accounts that huge cash amounts, sometimes amounting to Rs.90 lakhs in a single transaction, were deposited with the Banks.
The modus operandi of the gang had by now unfolded to a large extent. Photographs on existing PAN cards & Voter ID cards were replaced by photographs of an employee of the mastermind without tampering with the name and other particulars. These forged documents were used for floating various firms/companies, getting the firms registered with VAT authorities, for opening accounts in various Banks and for hiring premises for short periods. Till date, 20 such firms/companies and 26 Bank accounts, comprising Delhi branches of some foreign banks, Indian private sector Banks as well as some Public Sector Banks, have been detected. Huge cash amounts running into Rs 50 lakhs to 60 lakhs per transaction, were received by the mastermind from various Hawala dealers in Chandani Chowk and Gaffar market for illegally transferring out of India to Hongkong and China. These amounts were deposited in some of the accounts and were rotated frequently, by using RTGS facility through several other Bank accounts to camouflage the trail which could reveal the origin of the cash. Forged BEs were then submitted before the Banks and the amount were safely and legally transmitted to the Bank account identified by the sender.
In order to create a façade of genuine trading, the mastermind also showed purchase of metal scrap from various scrap dealers in Khari Baoli, Delhi. Bills were issued from some of his firms showing sale of scrap to Himachal Pradesh based companies from where payments were received by Cheques and, as the sales had not taken place, the payments were returned in cash out of the cash received from Hawala traders. In order to give another layer of genuineness to his transactions, the mastermind actually imported 7-8 containers of various goods. These imports also gave him access to ICD,TKD premises from where he could manage genuine BE Nos.
Interestingly, the mastermind, admittedly an 11th class pass school drop-out and a scrap trader, gathered around him a team consisting of an ex-Executive of Standard Chartered Bank on a monthly retainership of Rs.1.5 lakh per month for providing valuable advice on Banking laws and procedures concerning foreign trade; one Chartered Accountant for certifying various financial documents required by the Banks for making foreign remittances and an ex-employee of a telecom major who had worked in the Telecom Company in a lower position where he was responsible for collecting KYC docs. With the help of such 'able' associates, the mastermind had successfully laundered huge amount of cash against non-existent imports and also taken banks of all hues for a royale ride.
