Axis money laundering case: ED files charges

New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has filed its first chargesheet in money laundering cases emanating from demonetisation against officials of an Axis bank branch here and others for alleged illegal conversion of scrapped currency notes.

Sources said the agency filed its chargesheet before a special Prevention of Money Laundering Act court here on Thursday. The agency has named two bank officials, working at the Kashmere Gate branch in Old Delhi area, Vineet Gupta (branch head) and Shobhit Sinha (operations head) who with active connivance of a private person — Rajeev S. Kushwaha — deposited “huge amount of demonetised currency to the tune of Rs 40 crore of various firms and companies run by Kushwaha for a huge commission and converted it into monetised form like RTGS transfers and gold”.

The case was first detected by the Delhi police after it intercepted three persons with about Rs 3.7 crore cash in old notes in front of the Axis Bank branch in November last year. The ED took cognisance of the police FIR and slapped money laundering charges against the accused. The trio was arrested by it in December last year under PMLA and are currently in judicial custody. While elaborating their modus operandi, the agency said, the trio used to “deposit money after banking hours.”

“The money deposited in these accounts was transferred to different accounts within minutes to different companies. The deposits were made without authorisation, bypassing banking formalities.”

The agency said, “It all started when following demonetisation (on November 8, 2016) people with illegal money began converting their old currency notes into gold/legal tender. These bullion traders wanted payments in RTGS/transfer of money through banking channel for the sale of gold as old currency was not accepted. Some of such elements contacted Kushwaha and his associates for this purpose. Kushwaha was having various fictitious companies/firms namely Ms Himalaya International, Ms RD Trader and Ms Beagle Marketing and Ms Sunrise Trading.” The chargesheet further said: “They (Kushwaha and others) contacted Gupta and Sinha to get special facilities to put the old currency into the banking system through their fictitious/shell companies having current account in Kashmere Gate branch by offering huge commission.”