Assets of Defence Accounts officer frozen for laundering

A special anti-money laundering court here has ordered attachment of Rs 50 lakh assets and bank accounts of a Defence Accounts officer for defrauding provident funds of armed forces personnel and generating funds illegally for himself and his family.
The order has been issued after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) registered a case in this regard and booked Assistant Accounts Officer, Corps of Signals, Suryakanth Gaur posted in the Army Cantonment in Madhya Pradesh's Jabalpur.
The Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court, a judicial appellate body for such criminal offences, has attached a total of 19 bank accounts having about Rs 20 lakh in the name of Gaur, his wife, son and daughter-in-law in Jabalpur, a Rs 20 lakh house, a Rs 7 lakh sedan car and 17 life insurance policies worth about Rs 4 lakh.

"I am convinced that the defendant (Gaur) has prima facie, committed the scheduled offences, generated proceeds of crime and laundered them in purchase of the properties provisionally attached by the complainant (ED) in this case.
No doubt, these properties are involved in money laundering and therefore liable for attachment," acting Chairman of the Authority K Raamamoorthy said in his order.
The case dates back to 2010 when the Deputy Controller of Defence Accounts, Jabalpur complained to CBI that during 200-09 some officers of the Corps of Signals here entered into a criminal conspiracy and abused their official position and prepared false documents in the name of fake persons for making final settlement from the Armed Forces Public Provident Fund accounts and defrauded the government to the tune of more than Rs three crore.

The CBI has already filed a charge sheet under Prevention of Corruption Act provisions in a special court after finding merit in the complaint.

The ED, in its charge sheet, had said that Gaur while working as Assistant Accounts Officer was involved in fraudulent payments in Armed Forces Provident Fund Settlement cases.
The fraud involves, the agency said, an amount of more than Rs 3 crore in 55 cases.
Most of the cases were processed by the accused officer in his capacity as Assistant Accounts Officer and out of these fraud cases, total amount of Rs 82.30 lakh in 13 cases has been credited into various savings accounts.

Thereafter, the said money was used for acquiring the movable and immovable assets, the ED said.
The ED charge sheet also reported a statement of Gaur made under PMLA provisions that he embezzled over Rs 69 lakh from the accounts of Signal Corps, Jabalpur and that the officer "miserably failed to justify the source of acquisition of the properties".
The agency will soon take possession of the frozen assets.