Ramalinga Raju appears in court on money laundering charges

Satyam Computer Services Limited founder B Ramalinga Raju and other accused on Friday appeared before a local court pertaining to a compliant filed against them by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for violations of foreign currency regulations and money laundering.

Among those who appeared before the court and submitted personal bonds of Rs 10,000 each were Raju, his younger brother and Satyam's former managing director Rama Raju and former chief financial officer Srinivas Vadlamani. The court posted the matter to May 5, 2014.

On 28 October 2013, the ED had filed a chargesheet against Raju and 212 others before the XXI additional magistrate court in Hyderabad. Subsequently, the agency, which sought to prosecute the accused under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, had attached 350 properties worth about Rs 1,075 crore.

EDI in its report had said that "It transpires that the accused resorted to inter-connected transactions so as to ensure that crime proceeds were distanced from its initial beneficiaries, and laundered the said proceeds under the cover of the corporate veil, with an ulterior motive to project the properties so acquired as untainted ones."

The ED report had also said that Raju and the other accused, who had also been probed by CBI, "derived proceeds of crime from the sale and pledge of inflated shares of M/s Satyam Computers and Services Ltimited (SCSL)". It highlighted the modus operandi used by the accused of receiving "bonus shares, shares under employee stock option schemes and dividends on the inflated shares of M/s SCSL".