New Delhi, May 9 (PTI) The ED has arrested a Delhi-based businessman in a case linked to alleged laundering of funds worth Rs 1,146 crore by forging air way bills of reputed companies in the guise of freight-forwarding services.

Deepak Nayyar, a partner of Seabay International, was taken into custody on May 5 and produced before a special court dealing with cases lodged under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in Hyderabad that sent him to the Enforcement Directorate's (ED) custody till May 22, the federal probe body said in a statement on Monday.

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It said the investigators of the agency "came across the new modus operandi of using forged air way bills (AWB) of reputed companies in the guise of freight-forwarding services and fake invoices for import of cloud rental services to send bogus foreign outward remittances from bank accounts of multiple shell companies, which led to flight of Rs 1,146 crore away from India".

The ED informed the Hyderabad police about the alleged illegal activity that led to the registration of an FIR in September last year. The agency filed its case under criminal sections of the PMLA on the basis of the police FIR.

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Under the PMLA, the ED can register a money-laundering case only if there is a predicate offence complaint or a First Information Report (FIR).

The agency said it "traced" Nayyar on the basis of a fund-trail investigation of suspicious bank accounts and an analysis of IT (income tax) and GST (goods and services tax) returns.

"It was found that Deepak Nayyar was the entry operator using the shell companies to launder the money.

"These shell companies received laundered money partly from Chinese companies and partly from other suspicious unconnected entities to the tune of Rs 1,146 crore and in turn, this laundered money was sent out as foreign outward remittances based on fake certificates or documents," the ED alleged.

The agency said it arrested a chartered accountant named Ravi Kumar of HAR Associates in December last year in this case.

"The suspected mastermind and the proprietors of the shell firms are absconding and further probe is on," it said.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)