New Delhi, Jan 13 (UNI) Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday arrested former Rajya Sabha MP KD Singh under Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in a case relating to certain ambiguous financial transactions.
KD Singh, who was elected to the Upper House of the Parliament in April 2014 on a TMC ticket, was arrested by the probe agency as he failed to explain certain transactions pertaining to the money laundering case in which he was allegedly involved, the agency officials said.
In September 2019, the premises of the KD Singh and his son Karan Deep Singh were searched in New Delhi as well as in Chandigarh in connection with the Alchemist Group of companies, being controlled by Karan Deep Singh.
During searches, according to ED, a number of documents reflecting the circular nature of transactions, digital evidence and property documents were seized. Search at the official residence of KD Singh in Delhi resulted in the recovery of Rs 32 lakhs in cash along with foreign currency worth 10,000 US Dollars.
Investigation under the PMLA was initiated in 2018 against Mr Singh on the basis of FIRs registered by Kolkata Police under sections relevant to cheating and criminal conspiracy against Singh, his son, Alchemist Township India Limited, Alchemist Holdings Limited and various other companies and directors linked with the group for allegedly cheating thousands of customers.
“The former TMC MP used his companies, including Alchemist Township India Limited and Alchemist Holdings Limited to raise huge amounts of money collected from customers in the garb of investments by luring them of high returns”, the probe agency said.
The money was also raised against the sale and booking of plots and flats, they added. The ED officials also said that the funds raised were allegedly not used for the intended purpose and were allegedly diverted and siphoned off to various group companies.
“The Money so collected from the innocent public was transferred in a circular manner in order to conceal and layer in a fraudulent way and various entities involved in this process have been found to be dummy directors,” another official in the agency said.
UNI AKS SHK2100