BoB case: ED arrests two on money laundering charges

Two brothers were today arrested by Enforcement Directorate (ED) in connection with its money laundering probe in the Rs 6,000 crore suspicious forex transactions case at a Bank of Baroda (BoB) branch here.
Official sources said Varun and Gaurav Bhatia were arrested under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and were later produced in a court which sent them to five days custody till March 1.
They said the duo were called for questioning at the agency's office here and were later arrested as they were allegedly "not cooperating" with the investigators.
They claimed the duo had floated three firms and had sent about Rs 100 crore remittances to Hong Kong and other overseas locations in alleged violation of foreign exchange and PMLA laws.

With the latest action, ED has made a total of six arrests in this case which it is probing along the CBI and the Income Tax department.
ED has termed this case to be an alleged incident of trade-based money laundering, where accused traders evade custom duties and taxes to generate slush funds.

Those arrested last year were said to be alleged middlemen for at least 15 fake companies, out of the total 59 which were involved in the perpetrating of the economic crime unearthed in October, 2015.
The ED had said the four allegedly connived with each other in "forming" fake companies and business entities in Hong Kong by "over valuing" the export value and subsequently claiming duty drawbacks.

CBI had also arrested BoB AGM S K Garg and Jainish Dubey, who headed the foreign exchange division at its Ashok Vihar branch here, under various provisions of the IPC and the Prevention of Corruption Act and also filed a charge sheet against them.