ED arrests businessman in lawyer Rohit Tandon PMLA case

Lodha was held in Mumbai by ED after they recovered huge cache of new currency notes of Rs. 500 and Rs. 2,000 from a Delhi law firm.

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New Delhi: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested a Delhi-based businessman in connection with its notes ban money laundering probe against Delhi lawyer Rohit Tandon and others.

Officials said the agency arrested Yogesh Mittal, a businessman from the Model Town area, yesterday evening for his alleged role in the illegal conversion of demonetised currency worth Rs 51 crore in "connivance" with Tandon, a suspended Kotak Mahindra bank manager and an another person who acted as entry operator or illegal funds router.

They said Mittal was arrested under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

He will be produced before a competent court today for further custody, they said.

The agency, on May 30, had also conducted raids on the premises of Mittal and an ex-Congress MLA in Delhi to collect more evidence in this case.

It said Mittal was "instrumental in picking up the demonetised cash of Tandon during the period of November 14-19 last year and deposited in various bank accounts of shell companies."

"It was conspired amongst Kamal Jain, Tandon's CA, Mittal, Ashish Kumar (ex-bank manager), Raj Kumar Goel (entry operator) and others that demonetised currency would be collected and deposited in various accounts of the firms which have huge cash in hand and from those accounts Demand Drafts (DDs) in fictitious names would be issued.

"Later, these DDs would be cancelled to get the money back into the accounts, thus converting the demonetised currency into monetised currency," the agency said in a statement.

The two big currency notes of Rs 1000 and Rs 500 were demonetised after Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a national address in this regard on November 8 last year.

The said cash, the ED said, was also allegedly deposited in accounts of certain fictitious people using fake documents.

This is the fourth arrest in this case by the ED as it has already arrested Tandon, former Kotak Mahindra bank manager Kumar and Goel.

The ED had alleged that Tandon and the other accused in the case "conspired so that demonetised currency would be collected and deposited in various accounts of the firms which have huge cash in hand, and from those accounts demand drafts in fictitious names would be issued."

The ED took over the case and registered an FIR under PMLA after taking cognisance of Delhi Police crime branch FIR on alleged fake accounts with deposits worth Rs 34 crore.

The agency has attached, under PMLA law, assets (DDs) worth Rs 41.65 crore in this case.

The Income Tax Department too is probing the case.