India News | ED Seizes Jewellery, Cash Worth over Rs 1 Cr in Raids Against Financial Firms Across Cities
Get latest articles and stories on India at LatestLY. The Enforcement Directorate has seized gold, jewellery, and some cash worth Rs 1.04 crore in multi-city raids against some share brokerage and financial firms as part of a money laundering investigation, the agency said Friday.
New Delhi, Dec 2 (PTI) The Enforcement Directorate has seized gold, jewellery, and some cash worth Rs 1.04 crore in multi-city raids against some share brokerage and financial firms as part of a money laundering investigation, the agency said Friday.
Sixteen premises located across Chennai, Mumbai, and Delhi covering office and residential premises of two listed companies – Securekloud Technologies Limited and Pro Fin Capital Services Limited, were raided as part of the investigation.
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Other than these two, premises associated with Quantum Global Securities Limited (QGSL), Unity Global Financial Services Pvt Limited, and Desert River Capital Pvt Ltd had been covered recently, the agency said.
The money laundering case stems from an FIR lodged in February, 2019 with the central crime branch of Chennai Police by Suresh Venkatachari, the promoter and CEO of Securekloud Technologies Limited (STL), against QGSL, its directors, and a person named Rohit Arora.
STL, earlier known as 8k Miles Software Services Limited, is a software and IT services company, and has presence in India and USA, the ED said.
"The complaint was lodged against some sharebrokers and financial service provider companies which sold the shares pledged by the promoter of STL in order to borrow loan against STL shares.
"The complaint also stated that the share brokers who have provided loan forged the signatures on delivery instruction slips and sold the shares in off-market," it said.
The probe found that the directors and beneficial owners of these share brokerage and financial firms transferred shares worth Rs 160 crore off-market, and subsequently sold them to generate "huge proceeds of crime."
It was also found that the complaint lodged by the promoter of STL was "misleading" as he and his CFO were involved in a "larger conspiracy" of cheating general public by way of inflating the books of the company, the agency said.
STL "diverted" the company funds to unrelated business activities of other companies which had in them stakes of CFO and CEO of STL, the agency said.
"Even the suspicious activity for share price manipulation was being done by some unscrupulous share traders with tacit support and connivance of senior management of STL and the same is being looked into.
"The larger conspiracy of promoters of listed company and the share broking companies that have provided loan and allegedly sold the shares of company is under investigation from the perspective of money laundering," ED said.
The ED said the searches carried out by it led to the seizure of Rs 1.04 crore in cash, gold and diamond jewellery, identification of immovable properties of more than Rs 30 crore, and other movable assets in various DMAT accounts.
(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)