Company staffer booked for money laundering in Rs 220cr scam

Enforcement Directorate has registered a money laundering case against an employee of a company and others for allegedly siphoning off Rs 220 crore from government agencies like MMRDA, MTDC and APMC.
Vimal Barot, an employee of Showman Group, and others including a bank staffer, have been booked under Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), an ED officer said today.
"We have registered a case under PMLA against Barot and others for siphoning off money from some government agencies," he said.
In July this year, CBI's Economic Offence Wing had booked Barot and bank employee, Pritam Nagarkar, for using the fix deposits of MMRDA, MTDC and five other organisations to draw loans using cash credit facility.

"CBI booked them for swindling money on the pretext of helping the government agencies park their surplus cash reserves as fixed deposits at a state-run bank," an ED source said.
The scam came to fore when these agencies got in touch with the bank and learnt their funds had been withdrawn illegally.

Barot and Nagarkar first raised fixed deposits worth Rs 250 crore and later allegedly used the cash-credit facility and fraudulently took out Rs 220 crore posing as financial advisors to these government bodies.
A cash-credit facility is where a customer can withdraw money from a bank against their fixed deposits.

ED is a specialised financial investigation agency of the central government which handles cases related to PMLA (where proceeds of crime are transformed into legitimate money or other assets) and Foreign Exchange Management Act.