New Delhi: Controversial meat exporter Moin Qureshi was on Thursday questioned by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with a hawala and foreign exchange violation case.
Qureshi was questioned for over four hours by the ED, which had filed the case against him.
The ED also carried out searches yesterday on several premises owned by Qureshi.
As per sources, ED sleuths swooped down on at least five premises of Qureshi in the national capital "looking for documents and evidence" against the businessman against whom the Income Tax department carried out a similar exercise last year for alleged tax evasion.
The ED took over the case after the I-T shared documents indicating hawala and alleged violations of Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) by the businessman and his business entities based here.
Sources, quoting the tax report, had said instances have been detected by tax sleuths of illegal funds being routed to Hong Kong and some European locations by using the illegal channel which entails skipping the legal banking route to move huge amounts of money with an aim to avoid enforcement agencies.
The ED is the designated nodal central agency to probe these crimes under FEMA laws and hence the tax department had shared relevant portions of its report with the agency.
The taxman, in the said appraisal report, had pegged an alleged evasion of Rs 200 crore by Qureshi and his business firms and the report is now with the assessment wing of the I-T department which is expected to soon issue demand notices to him.
The appraisal report was also placed before the Supreme Court by the tax department in October last year year.
The case came to light after the I-T department conducted searches on the premises of Qureshi and his firms in February this year and it detected alleged "under reporting" of profits by these business units which are primarily involved in meat processing, selling and exporting businesses.
(With PTI inputs)
