NSEL money laundering probe: ED conducts fresh raids in 5 cities

The Enforcement Directorate on Wednesday conducted fresh searches in five cities in connection with the NSEL money laundering probe and recovered "some documents", officials said.

They said the raids, under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), were being conducted against some of the accused defaulters in Delhi, Chandigarh, Ahmedabad (Gujarat) , Mumbai (Maharashtra) and Bengaluru (Karnataka).

The agency, it is understood, has gathered some fresh evidence recently and hence is undertaking the action.

"Some documents have been recovered during the searches that are expected to continue till tomorrow," a senior official said.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED), over the years, has attached assets valued at over Rs 28 billion in this case.

The central probe agency, along with the Economic Offences Wing of the Mumbai Police, had registered a criminal case in 2013 under the PMLA to probe the National Spot Exchange Limited (NSEL), defaulting firms and others associated with it.

The agency alleged that the accused persons in the said case hatched a criminal conspiracy to defraud investors, induced them to trade on the platform of NSEL, created forged documents such as bogus warehouse receipts, falsified accounts and thereby committed criminal breach of trust against about 13,000 investors to the tune of Rs 56 billion.

It had in March, 2015, also filed a 20,000-page charge sheet against NSEL and 67 others in a court here alleging the NSEL funds were laundered and "illegally ploughed into purchase of private properties".

NSEL's payment troubles started after it was ordered by regulator, Forward Markets Commission (FMC), in July 2013 to suspend spot trade in most of its contracts due to suspected trading violations.

The exchange could not settle the outstanding trades, leading to investigations by the police and regulators to find out whether the exchange had defrauded traders by not enforcing rules requiring sufficient collateral to be set aside.