ED trains guns on diamond merchant

Mumbai: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has shared information with the income tax department about a diamond merchant in the city who was allegedly importing diamonds via the import remittance method. The merchant, who is said to be staying in South Mumbai, allegedly conducts his business in the Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) diamond hub and is under the scanner for converting nearly Rs 300 crore into dollars. ED sources revealed that they had informed the I-T department about the same, but were also investigating the merchant.

The officials said the ED had intimated I-T department about its investigation of the merchant who allegedly, under the pretext of importing diamonds, deposited hundreds of crores into accounts and got these converted to foreign exchange and deposited them at offshore locations. Sources revealed that the ED had been probing the merchant who has his office at the Bharat Diamond Bourse (BDB) and runs the business with a relative.

Officials said that their role came to the fore when they were investigating four other diamond merchants and had even found another merchant who had created six shell companies and had transacted nearly Rs 700 crores, which were after being converted to foreign exchange transferred to Hong Kong and Dubai. Sources revealed that the raids were conducted at the offices of the merchant at BDB. “He stays in South Mumbai but has his office in BKC. The I-T department is conducting further probe and we are also investigating whether he had created shell companies and what amount of money he had transacted in old currency notes after demonetisation,” said an officer.  The source said that they were looking into whether the bank through which the merchant transacted money is involved in the scam.