Hawala trader Paras Lodha arrested, sent to ED custody

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday said it has arrested hawala trader Paras Mal Lodha here for converting over Rs 25 crore demonetised notes linked to industrialist J. Sekhar Reddy and lawyer Rohit Tandon into new currency. A city court later sent Lodha to seven-day ED custody.

The Kolkata-based businessman was arrested on Wednesday evening after hours of questioning by the ED officials.

"We had called Lodha on Wednesday for questioning him over the conversion of more than Rs 25 crore of old notes to new currency in Shekhar Reddy and Rohit Tandon cases. He was arrested later," said an ED official.

The ED booked Lodha under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and produced him before a court here on Thursday seeking his custody to track other accused involved in the corruption.

Additional Sessions Judge Sanjeev Jain sent Lodha to seven-day ED custody.

Lodha, a leading businessman with interests in real estate and mining, was intercepted by a team of ED sleuths at the Mumbai airport on Wednesday while he was trying to flee to Malaysia.

The ED's move came when it got a tip-off about Lodha planning to leave India, as it had earlier issued a look out circular against him.

Officials said that separate teams were sent to Kolkata and Mumbai to arrest Lodha who facilitated businessman Shekhar Reddy and owner of T&T law firm Rohit Tandon convert their old high value currency into new currency.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Wednesday arrested Reddy, a former Tirumala Tirupathi Devasthanam Board Member, and two others from Chennai for money laundering after Income Tax (IT) department recently seized 177 kg of gold, Rs 96 crore in old 500 and 1,000 rupee notes and Rs 34 crore in new currency from their premises.

Cash amount of Rs 13.65 crores, including Rs 2.60 crore in new currency notes, was seized from south Delhi's Greater Kailash-I office belongs to Tandon during a raid conducted by Delhi Police on December 10.

Sources said that Reddy had executed a lot of work for the Tamil Nadu government,

In connection with the case, IT officials raided at 12 locations on Wednesday, including the house of Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary P. Rama Mohana Rao. The raids began on Wednesday morning and continued till Thursday and saw recovery of a large amount of cash in new currency.

ED officials earlier on December 1 raided multiple hawala operators across the country involved in illegal conversion of old currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 to valid legal tender since November 8 demonetisation announcement.

--IANS

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